If the material is not hooped securely enough, it can shift slightly and cause the outline to be off. Also, resizing some designs will make the outline off.

I sometimes have problems, but they mostly are the result of not enough stabiliser underneath dense designs; the stitches then pull the fabric slightly together which results in an outline that leaves gaps. Does it happen with every design or just the dense ones? The more per square cm or inch the sturdier the combination of material and stabiliser should be.

Thankyou,good question,this sometimes happens to me,i will try useing more stabiliser.flowers to all.

haven't so far but who knows the next time

Slow your machine right down when doing outlines and use the right amount of stabilizer for the amount of stitches, eg 1 layer stabilizer ever 10,00 stitches.

Try checking how your thread is coming off the spool, is it free or pulling a little. I had similar problems with my stitch outs which I finally worked out this was my problem. As I use mostly cones, if I used the recommended horizontal spool the thread would drop and tangle so I used the secondary upright spindle. What was happening was it was creating just enough extra tension on the thread that is was affecting the quality of my stitchouts. I made myself a mini thread stand and have had no more problems.
I was blaming my hooping technique, and my Janome till I got a Brother and the same problem persisted, that's when I worked this out. It has made such a difference to my stitchouts. I can add a pic if you want.
Good luck.

Yvonne, here are two pictures of my 'thread stand' on my Janome.
You can see in the first one how the thread now just lifts off the spool, whereas before it would pull from the side and 'tug' as it unwound. I made it with a disc of wood, straw for the centre as it sits on the upright spool-pin of my machine and a modified jumbo paperclip with some knead-it compound to hold it firm.
I made one for my brother machine too, but used a piece of chopstick for the spindle as it just sits on top of the machine with a dab of blutac under it to hold it in place.

i know what you mean about the out line being off.
I have bought and got the freebies of the same exact design and had the same problem with it.
really made me mad too. the design was WONDERFUL, just the outline was off.

I read somewhere that if the stitching doesn't match the outline ie spaces - then it's either not hooped tight enough and it's slipping or the wrong stabilizer.

Had the same problem same machine.

I have had similar problems with my Brother 750D and believe it is because of the lack of a decent stitch speed control.
The 750D has only two selectable speeds and once you start stitching, the speed automatically varies up and down and doesn't stay at the slower speed.
I find this totally unsatisfactory especially when stitching FSL designs as the outline and fill always have a big gap where there should be none.

I have stitched out the same designs on the Designer Diamond and they have stitched out perfectly.

I use both machines with thread stands and thread nets, a habit picked up when I worked in the rag trade with industrial machines, I would never use a spool horizontally, it goes against everything I have ever known..
hugs n roses, Meganne