How to Use a Walking Foot on Thick, Slippery or Quilted Fabrics

Summary

The walking presser foot is my weird little bestie. It keeps multiple layers of fabric feeding evenly, which makes it a godsend for thick stuff, lots of layers, knits, quilts, and those slippery fellas that want to shift on you.

In this one I show you how to attach it, why the screw-tightening step took me a full minute and a half (I left it in on purpose — sometimes real life moves slower than a tutorial), how the feed dogs actually keep your layers lined up, and what to do when your bobbin inevitably jams. It ends with the finished shorts I made for JR, which have pockets on the butt and pockets on the side, and which I made a bit too small so I had to add a side panel.

• How to attach a walking foot: raise your existing foot, slide the new one in from the back, hook the arm over the needle knob, tighten the screw
• Turn the wheel manually first to make sure everything's seated right
• Use a longer stitch length (I went to 4) on thick woven fabric so your stitches can actually travel
• Always start and end with a back stitch
• What a bobbin jam looks like in real time, and how I free it — usually caused by the bobbin winding not being tight enough

Transcript

Meet the walking presser foot. This little guy is excellent for keeping multiple layers of fabric feeding evenly. So thick stuff, lots of layers, knits, quilts, the slippery fellas, the thick boys. She is a godsend. You're going to take off your existing presser foot. Obviously, you're going to have it raised. Then you're going to slide this guy in from the back. He get that little arm over this little knob here that I'm pointing to, you know, the knob that holds your needle in place. And you just make sure it's attached there. And then you have to tighten up the screw so that it stays firmly in place.

I'm not going to speed up this portion of me tightening the screw because it's just another reminder that sometimes the easiest things can be way more difficult than they need to be. I'm using the thing you gave me. Why is it easier to use my fingers? I swear to God, it took me like a full minute and a half to get this thing where it should be. And I kept dropping the little tool. And again, I'm just being honest and vulnerable with you. This should take 10 seconds. And most videos showing you how to attach a presser foot will take 10 seconds. But sometimes real life moves a little bit slower than that. And that's okay. It's okay. Take your time. Maybe paint your nails instead. Geez, Sam. Okay.

Now, what I'm going to do is switch angles and show you that I'm just manually turning the wheel to make sure that I've got this guy in the right place and that I've got that guy tightened up. I'm going to use a straight stitch and I'm going to change the length to four because I'm using a really thick fabric and I want those stitches to actually like move and to go over these thick woven bits. Start with a back stitch always and then just and you'll see like how even these layers are staying. It's not trying to push the top layer forward more or like keeping it still while only moving the bottom layer. The feed dogs are literally feeding it evenly. Does that make sense? So you just zoop zoop zoop all the way around in my case on these shorts and then your bobbin will get stuck. It's inevitable. I don't know why.

Uh, so I'm going to slow down this part and let you see in real time how I fight with it. Uh, I try to move my garment out of the way. I try to establish where all of the threads are connecting and jammed. It seems to be right there where I can't show you. So, I take my snips in, I free it, and then we speed things up, get it reloaded, and get ourselves back in business. Sometimes I don't know why this happens, but I'm pretty sure this time it happened because I didn't have the bobbin wound tight enough. Maybe. Who knows? Anyway, cutting off this clump of thread here, throwing it to the side, and I'll probably find it on my pants later today.

Uh, what am I going to show you now? Just one more start and stop. You get it lined up. You get it nice and even. You drop your foot down and even, even lined up. Okay. Couple stitches forward. And then a back stitch or five. And then all the way down. And here's just another angle. You'll see how even those bottoms stay. They're feeding perfectly even. The pattern is staying lined up. It's as easy as that.

A quick little montage of finishing up this piece. And here we go. These are the finished shorts. I made them for my husband. They have pockets. And I also I made them too small, so I had to add this extra little side panel that I'm showing you just to give them a little breathing room. And uh also they have pockets on the butt and pockets on the side. And I don't know why I'm touching my crotch. And then I'm going to spin around a little more. Decide do I want these legs shorter or not. I'm probably going to leave them the way they are for now and cut those threads and call it a day. We did it. I hope you like the walking foot.

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