How to Use a Walking Foot: In the beginning, you probably do not realize how useful this foot is, but once you obtain it, you’ll find it good for almost all of your sewing. Walking feet also called even feed feet, are essential for all serious sewists, especially for quilters.
Using a walking foot instead of an all-purpose foot, a straight stitch can be sewn and a zigzag stitch, which results in the same feed for upper and lower layers of fabric.
When the layers of fabric are not fed evenly, there will usually be puckering at the seam line. Whether you are sewing very thin, delicate fabrics, draperies, vinyl, satins, or fabrics with a pile or nap, or sewing too thick layers of fabric, you don’t want the fabric to slip.
Another reason why the fabric might not advance is due to its stiffness. Normally, you know that you shouldn’t force the fabric through a sewing machine or needle. This could cause damage to the machine, a misaligned needle, etc. These layers of impossible fabric need not be moved together, as this foot can do it effortlessly.
It’s not unusual for stripes, checks, and other patterns to be asymmetrical if they’re fed unevenly. When the fabric moves, the matching will be incorrect.
Using the walking foot, you can choose the stitch length that best matches the size of your machine.
Initially, the sewing machine was equipped with a feeding mechanism that worked with it. Your machine’s feed dogs work together with these parts. A feed dog’s movement seems to be synchronized with that of the needle bar. An upper feed dog grips the fabric’s top layer, while a lower feed dog grips the fabric’s bottom layer.
What is a walking foot?
The walking foot looks like a complicated sewing machine tool. But in actual it is not a very tricky and complicated sewing tool. In an upward or downward motion, the teeth of the strap crank up and down on the surface of the foot, depending upon the position of its sidebar.
How to use your walking foot
- To begin with, fit it into the machine.
- As you would do if you adjusted any presser foot, raise the take-up lever as high as possible.
- There is a presser foot holder included with this foot. The presser foot and holder can be removed by unscrewing the needle bar screw from the needle foot holder and the presser foot holder.
- Attach the walking foot extension arm to the needle clamp of the needle bar and tighten the screw.
- The foot of the machine can be equipped with a quilting guide bar.
- Ensure that your foot will fit through the needle before you lower the needle – moving the handwheel slowly by hand allows the needle to pass through.
- Finally, now thread the needle and begin to sew.
Check that your walking foot is suitable for your machine – you shouldn’t buy a walking foot that works with another machine. You can find out which machines this foot works with by asking the vendor where you bought it.
How to use a walking foot for garment sewing
Below mentioned are some sewing method in which you can use a walking foot.
1. Working through thick seams
An advantage of walking feet is that they have extra teeth that allow the foot to cling to bulky seams, such as at the junction of a waistband and side seams, or join the fly opening and crotch seams a pair of pants.
A normal presser foot could become trapped in the thread at these tricky places, resulting in a nest of messy thread underneath. The walking foot makes it easier for the fabric to move “uphill” on foot.
2. Matching seam intersections
A seamless horizontal or vertical seam should be achieved by perfectly aligning the seam intersections, whether you are sewing the waist seam or the cuffs separately. If you pin everything carefully, the top layer might slightly bump forward when you sew, creating seam lines that aren’t completely aligned. It’s unacceptable to have a 1/8″ difference on the right side.
If you have to undo your stitching to correct such a tiny error, it’s frustrating, but if you stitch the first time perfectly, it’s satisfying. When the seams are pinched securely, the layers will continue to be sewn evenly using a walking foot.
3. Combining plaids, stripes, and other prints
When sewing garments with printed patterns or directional prints that need to match across major seams, a walking foot is helpful as well. Taking the time to cut and pin your pieces in advance allows the prints to line up closely along seams when you sew with a walking foot.
4. Topstitching bindings, hems or plackets
Steaming the fabric can sometimes reset the problem, but it rarely does. Even after it has been pressed, the underside of the fabric may scoot faster than the bottom side when a normal presser foot is used. A deeper hem, for example, puts you closer to this edge than a fold. Walking feet help to keep your layers even, so your edges are nice and flat.
5. Sewing knits
As you sew with knit fabrics, they tend to “grow” under the presser foot because of their stretch. Working with stretchy fabrics or sewing in their direction should always be accounted for, such as when working with rib knits or on the hem of a T-shirt. A walking foot facilitates even movement of knit fabrics, preventing them from stretching out of shape.
Final Words
Rolling up the article we hope that you will find helping our article about How to Use a Sewing Machine Walking Foot. All you need to adjust follow the simple steps and you can make a beautiful design clothes in just a few seconds.
As we reach at the end of our article if you still face any difficulty in sewing pouch feel free to ask us in the comment section. Besides this also give your valuable feedback in the comment section and share the article with your friends and family members.