Sewing machine presser feet – why are they important and how can they make your life easier?
We’re often asked about the difficulty some of our sewists experience when undertaking specific fiddly tasks with their sewing machines.
It leads to frustration, the end results can be disappointing and – horror of horrors – sewing doesn’t seem to be so much fun any more…
Sometimes there is a quick, easy and inexpensive solution: cue choirs of heavenly angels and champagne corks popping!
It’s our mission to make sewing fun for everyone – so here are a number of wonderful little helpers that all come under the title of “sewing machine feet” or “presser feet”.
So sit back, relax and rekindle your love of sewing – thanks to these marvellous little gadgets!
Let’s start at the very beginning as Mary Poppins once supposedly said, with an all round introduction to some of the most widely used feet.
Sewing machine presser feet
The Made to Sew blog is our first port of call because it introduces you to a whole heap of goodies!
Many of these may come with your sewing machine – and if they don’t you can always source them at our online shop.
You can find out about the buttonhole foot, the zipper foot (both self-explanatory) the button foot, the non-stick glide foot and so on. The perfect place to start!
Look out for: the walking foot – there’s even a separate video for this one.
Presser foot tutorials
If you prefer video how-tos and explanations, we’ve got a whole raft of them here for you – in the shape of Babs Rudlin’s group of excellent .
All sorts of goodies from how to use a fringe foot, cording foot and how to blind hem trousers.
Look out for: How to use a fringe foot with bloopers at the end (it’ll make sense when you read it lol).
Using the right presser foot makes sewing easier, faster, more professional
Assembled by editor Liz Johnson, this excellent Sew 4 Home piece focuses on a few of the more interesting options available to sewists.
We particularly like the gentle approach of this how-to and after a good general introduction with the more basic options, starts to get really interesting with some more specialised sewing feet.
Little gems like the quarter inch seam foot – an essential for quilters – and it’s brilliant at edgestitching and topstitching.
We absolutely love: The border guide foot.
“If you want to sew perfectly parallel rows of stitches for a decorative effect, you’d normally have to get out your ruler and fabric pencils. But the Border Guide Foot lets you do it with virtually no measuring or marking.”
How to use a rolled hem foot
We’ve picked this little gem out on the grounds that it can assist greatly with narrow rolled hems which can be a challenge for seams on lightweight fabrics.
Santa’s little helper in this particular case is the wonderful “hemmer foot” and there’s a wonderful how-to on the Treasurie blog.
Most important bit: “After your 4 stitches, stop with the needle down in the fabric. Lift up the foot and insert the folded fabric into the curl of the foot.”
Send us YOUR sewing tips
We’d love to hear from you! We may even publish details and links on our blog. Become part of the Sew & Craft community by emailing your top tips to info@gursewingmachines.com.
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