Now that I think I’ve finished troubleshooting my Juki TL-2000Qi (yippee!), I wanted to summarize everything I fiddled with, just in case it might be useful to other new Juki owners.
Problem: The foot pedal only let me sew at full speed.
Solution: Open up the foot pedal and turn the plus sign thingy so it will let you sew at slow through fast speeds.
Problem: The free motion foot put too much pressure on quilts and the hopping action annoyed me.
Solution: Remove the hook at the top of the foot that rests on the presser foot shank’s screw (this gets rid of the hopping) and raise the foot with a bit of folded cardboard (this lets the foot float over quilts).
Problem: The walking foot straight up didn’t work properly.
Solution: Oil the heck out of it!
And then some general stuff:
1/4 inch seams
The included quarter inch foot is really cool, but gives me a super generous 1/4″ seam. Similarly, the 1/4″ marking on the plate makes me sew exactly on the quarter inch line, which means my seams are a bit too wide once they’re pressed. I’ve been using the edge of the standard presser foot for great scant 1/4 inch seams.
Foot pressure settings
I generally only sew with quilting cottons and home dec fabric, so I don’t have to change my foot pressure settings much. I’ve been using this for my standard foot and quilting cotton:
… and this for my walking foot:
It would be nice if this could be helpful to someone else, but at the very least, now I have quick pictures to look at when I forget what my foot pressure’s supposed to be. 😀
ETA – Reminder to myself for the future: buy top stitching 100/16 needles and lower the top thread tension if the top thread is breaking.
Yay for having a machine that works the way you want it to!