dunster

I move the needle on my Bernina too. It's second nature now - turn on machine, move needle over, press needle down button. The only time I don't do it is for paper piecing.

grammy Dwynn

I have a Janome 6500. To make sure I have a proper 1/4" seam. I used one of my rulers and green/blue painters tape (masking). Put the needle down, slide ruler under the foot against the needle, put foot back down. Then put the tape down right next to the ruler. This will be the stitching line. Pull out the ruler, now draw a 1/4" line on the tape. Plus I double check that this line lines up with the little dashes on the on the bobbin plastic plate (but do not put it on the plate). The reason I do it this way and not put the tape as my 1/4" seam area, is 1) it is easier to see the black line, 2) it also doubles when I have to sew HST (I do not have to draw line on each piece) I just line up the point of the HST and sew.

Another thing that I did was just tweaked (bent ever so slightly) the guard on my 1/4 foot. Plus when sewing, my fabric just feather touches the guard, not hard against it.

GGinMcKinney

I've had my 6600 for several years now. I always test my 1/4" seam on every change of a foot. An index card with lines have exactly 1/4" spaces. I carefully cut off the bottom line as it is shorter, turn the card over to the blank side and sew a seam. If I stayed on the line it is an exact 1/4". If I want a scant 1/4" the card helps to check it out also. I set of 100 cards is less than $1.00 at my local drugstore in the school supply section.




I moved the needle over and I get the 1/4' seam.
Has anyone else had this problem? I wonder if I got a bad foot.

MacThayer

I have a Janome with a 1/4 inch foot, and I come out with exactly a 1/4 inch seam. Problem is, most patterns now call for a scant 1/4 inch seam, especially if you're doing complicated blocks and stars. If you don't use the scant 1/4", your block will be too small. As far as I know, no one has come up with a "scant 1/4" foot". That means it's back to fiddling with the machine to find a way to feed the fabric into the machine so you come up with the size seam you need. Oh, hum. I was doing that over 30 years ago! I guess we can thank the rotary cutter, or so I've heard, as due to their precision, we have no "give" in the size of the cut. Or something like that.