Posts Tagged ‘walking foot’

*PSA*

Monday, January 26th, 2009

The following is a public service announcement for all of you who sew!

I do all of my sewing on a Bernina Activa 240. Not too long ago I learned an important lesson about using the walking foot while doing stitches that require alot of forwards and backwards movement. In a nutshell: DON’T. I learned this lesson after breaking several needles mid stitch… which, for those of you who’ve never had this experience, can ruin an otherwise pleasant day. Imagine sewing along, building up speed, when all of a sudden there’s an eardrum splitting screech and flying metal. One experience like that and washing dishes starts to look like fun.

About a week ago I got yet another lesson about the walking foot.

And hopefully, this will be the last one.

I was having a heck of a time with my stitches.

They would look alright on one side (either the front or back)…

…and terrible on the other side.

I fiddled with the tension. I double checked to see if I’d forgotten how to thread the machine. I changed the needle. I gave Nina a good talking to. I even shook my fist! To no avail.

Finally, with a heavy heart I bundled Nina up and took her to the Bernina shop to see the repair person. When I got there I discovered that the issue wasn’t the tension at all. The problem was with the timing. Fortunately for me, some poor woman had been experiencing the same problem days before I did and because of her (she took her machine in 5 times before they figured out what was wrong), the folks at the shop had a solution for the timing issue.

My goal here is to save you the frustration of going through what I went through. This may not apply to all brands of machine or all styles of Bernina machines, but it’s something to keep in mind. Particularly if your walking foot is not built in and must be manually attached.

Each time the Activa 240 is switched on, the machine runs a mini diagnostic of itself, testing the needle and various parts to make sure that they move smoothly and correctly.

*Because of the way the walking foot is attached to the needle, the walking foot stops the needle from moving properly when the machine runs it’s start up diagnostic. Basically, if you start the machine with the walking foot attached, the needle isn’t able to move freely when the machine runs it’s diagnostic and eventually this will throw off the timing of the machine. To prevent this, do not start the machine with the walking foot attached. Either remove it when you are finished sewing, or remove it before you switch the machine on.*

I am so relieved to have discovered this!

I hope that Nina will not have to visit the repair person again until it’s time for her annual tune up.

And I hope that by posting this I help others prevent this unnecessary problem.

Happy sewing and creating to you all!

Jenn : )

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Hi There!

Monday, July 16th, 2007
Hope you all had a great weekend.

It was super hot here – when we weren’t out-and-about,
Josh and I were camped out in the basement with a fan pointed at us.

Thank goodness my Nina is portable.
I set up a card table and did some ornament sewing.


Buying a walking foot for my sewing machine was money well spent!

I love this thing!!!

Jenn : )

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Tullstra With Ektorp

Monday, June 11th, 2007
Have you ever decided to change one small thing and the next thing you know you’ve spent your entire weekend re-organizing two entire rooms?
If so – then you know exactly how my weekend went and if not,
then live vicariously through me for a moment. : )
It all started when I decided I wanted a chair in my studio.
My studio used to look like THIS.
My drafting table took up almost half of the room and because of where it was placed, I really didn’t use that space very much at all.

Josh and I (well, I really) have been talking about going to Ikea for weeks now. Last week I went through the Ikea catalog and found the “Tullstra” chair with “Ektorp” cover and I thought “that might look cute in my studio” So off we went!

Once we got home, something about having a new chair (and indulging in a huge cup of mocha coffee) got me in the mood to re-organize. So I hauled most of the small stuff out of my studio, rearranged the larger things and Voila!
My “new” studio space!

(Somehow a cat usually ends up in my photos… this is Lucy)



I basically just moved the largest furniture to the walls, leaving a nice big area in the middle of the room (“big” is relative here). I think it uses the space much more efficiently and now I have a little reading space with my Tullstra chair (with Ektorp cover!) and Porfylit lamp (I just love Ikea names for things!).

At the same time, we have a tiny little closet across the hall in the guest bedroom. There was no light in that closet, so unless it was a very sunny day, you really couldn’t see very well in there. We bought a small light to go in there and Josh installed that yesterday afternoon. Which meant that I had to empty the closet. Which also led to most of the room getting rearranged, too.

In other news….


We also made a trip to Michaels while we were out and about. Wow – the Martha display was huge! All of it was lovely, of course. I picked up a glue pen and some pretty decorative tapes. I also got the much needed stickers I was looking for, and they had a sale on ribbon…..

And in even other news….


You guys were so right! This new walking foot for my Bernina is truly going to change my sewing life! No more puckers! Whoo hoo! I love it. I am imagining all sorts of projects I can use it for. It worked like a dream on the first of my little quilts. : )


Now that my room is all organized and I have my walking foot all set to go,
I plan on spending this afternoon sewing.

One of each of the little coat sewing books is now in my shop, and a new tasket.

Hope you all have a great Monday!

Jenn : )

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Hello Tuesday

Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
Hope you all had a great weekend : )

Things were quiet and relaxing here.We were out-and-about and got together with our friend John, which was very nice.

I was able to cross at least one thing off of my to-do list this weekend.
I have had quite a few sewing books that I started awhile back.
I finished up all twelve of them and Josh took pictures for me.


I have four of these little flower sets (you can see the fourth one in the shop).


There are eight of these little coat books. I really like these – especially the red books (the coat is a dark rusty brown with a pink collar – I love how those two colors look together). I used a little fun fur on the collars of the blue book coats.

I made it over to the Bernina shop this weekend and bought myself a walking foot! Yay!
The employees are very nice at that shop and took the time to give me a little demo on how to attach the foot and use it.


I’m so excited to try it out that I went through my scrap collection and already started cutting fabric to make three mini quilts. There will be a gold/tan one, a blue one and a green. I’m going with a bird theme again for these quilts.
Hum… I seem to have a thing for little quilts with birds… : )


Have you seen this adorable elephant fabric over at Reprodepot?

Or how ’bout this fantastic coaster set from one of my favorite Etsy shops, PaperedTogether?

And here is a beautiful article about yarns over at The Purl Bee.

Have a great day – we’ll chat again soon!

Jenn : )

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