Another presser foot that I think is a MUST for quilters is . . . the Walking Foot! If you've never heard of that, you're thinking WHA?
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| From 2008-11 |
A Little Explanation: The feed dog on your machine pull the fabric through the machine. Right? That's what they're meant to do, but sometimes when you're sewing on something slippy and slick, things don't sew through your machine too well. The top fabric wants to slip and slide all over and the bottom fabric tends to follow the feed dog. A walking foot has grippers from the top, that help "walk" the top fabric through while the feed dogs "walk" the bottom fabric through.
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| From 2008-11 |
In the Quilting world we don't sew a lot with slippy fabric, but we do sew "layers" together. And herein lies the problem. When a quilter is piecing the quilt top and sewing 2 layers of cotton fabric together, we can use the Quarter Inch foot just fine. But when we decide we're going to quilt the layers (quilt top, batting, quilt back) together our good old "regular" presser foot just doesn't work too well. Here's what happens; the quilt back gets pulled through by the feed dogs, but the quilt top gets pushed forward because of the thickness trying to make it's way through the small space between the presser foot and the feed dogs. SO, everything gets off kilter and a mess is made. The Walking Foot is the answer to the problem.
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| From 2008-11 |
I also apply my binding with a Walking foot, which is a really good thing, because when you're binding by machine not only do you have the 3 layer quilt sandwich (quilt top, batting, quilt back) but you've add 2 more layers for the binding!!
Also, you can use the walking foot to quilt the top! It's great for stitching in the ditch, quarter inch outlining and even some curvey designs. Check out Mary Mashuta's "Foolproof Machine Quilting".
BASICALLY! A walking foot is a very good thing to have in your quilter's bag of tricks!
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