I really like the look of straight-line quilting and the control you have over the stitch quality when using a walking foot. I took the Creative Quilting With Your Walking Foot Craftsy class and loved the ideas Jacquie Gering shared for designs and techniques. One sewing machine attachment that helps keep stitching in line is the guide bar. This kind of 'L' shaped metal guide slips in the back of a walking foot and can be used to line up subsequent stitching with previously stitched lines, a marked line, a length of painter's tape, or even a patchwork seam.
I've used my quilting guide before and achieved fairly straight lines of quilting. I have two Accufeed feet on which it attaches, but with my open-toe foot it is too loose in the hole. I've tried adding tape to keep it in place but it still slides out of position when the bulk of the quilt hits it or as I raise and lower the foot. It's very frustrating! When I went in search of solutions to the problem I hit upon Amy Friend's blog, During Quiet Time and discovered she had the same problem with her Janome machine. Amy's husband came up with a fix: two sets of 'o' rings (I think they are a plumbing product) on either side of the guide bar when it's inserted in the foot. That held things fairly well for Amy and seemed like a good idea because it was more secure than tape and easier to allow for re-positioning of the guide bar when needed.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find any 'o' rings small enough to fit snugly on my guide bar at the hardware store. I will keep checking other retailers when I'm out of town (e.g. Home Depot) and thought about picking up some small dental elastics to give those a try as well (I had used that idea on my old Singer machine as a spool stop). If any of you Macgyvers out there have an alternative idea, please let me know!
One other problem I have with the guide bar is that it attaches to the right of the foot. When I'm quilting straight lines it's usually in a border and I want to work from the centre of the quilt/border, out. So if the guide bar follows the line of stitching on the right one must be sewing to the left of it - working from the outside, in. I am not the only person on-line who realizes this is a design flaw. One fix is to simply insert the bar in the left of the foot upside down. This does work although it is not ideal because the bar must either ride above the fabric or risk catching it with the end. It was the only solution I had and I carefully added plenty of lines to my Frozen quilt this way. I believe it is Bernina that offers both a left and right-hand side guide bar and I have a request in with my dealer to see if he can find a left-oriented guide bar for my Janome(s). I hope he can!
One would think straight-line quilting is simple and fast. However, I've discovered there are challenges to it just like there are with free-motion quilting. You can't simply start adding lines to the quilt because if you want them to be straight and evenly spaced, with no puckers, you must mark orientation lines of some sort or be prepared to get off course as you proceed. If you want to use the edge of the foot itself as a guide you are limited to (usually) half-inch spacing, which is quite dense. It is also better to quilt larger spaced lines first and then sub-divide for small channel quilting so as to avoid puffiness and pleats. There can be many starts and stops and it can still be quite time consuming to get the quilting done. Straight-line quilting is not quite as straight-forward as you would imagine but there are many design possibilities and the resulting look and texture can be striking and fabulous!
I took Jacquie's class, too... It doesn't look like my Juki will be home in time for quilting my friend's baby quilt, so I'm trying to decide if I want to FMQ it or use the walking foot...
Posted by: Maureen | January 11, 2015 at 01:09 PM