Originally Posted by aneternalpoet
i have a Brother , but dont have the model number in front of me. I saw it at walmart here in our small town, but I bought it at a thrift store ( but it was brand new , as the owner had died, and her family donated it without the instruction book, sigh ).. I will check into the foot thing tomorrow if I can.. I really want to learn ( practice, practice, practice !) to do that kind of quilting on my smaller projects..
I was using a Brother that I'd purchased at Costco before upgrading (at substantial cost) to my Janome. When I started quilting on my Brother, I ended up ordering several more feet for it online, including a walking foot and a darning foot. As pointed out in other posts, the walking foot helps the three-layered fabric sandwich feed evenly while sewing straight lines (stitch in the ditch, cross hatch, bindings). The darning foot is for free-motion sewing (so the fabric is not moved automatically in a straight line away from you), and you either "drop" the feed dogs (on my Brother there's a switch on the bottom back of the machine that does this) or cover them so the fabric is not gripped by them (you can make a homemade cover...I'm sure there are posts on this board telling you how to do it).
These two feet look totally unlike any other feet. I was kinda frustrated at having gotten my Brother at such a good price but then having to pay so much for these extras...maybe you can find a bargain someplace. I've seen walking feet at Joanns (use a coupon???) but I'm not sure whether they fit the Brother...there may be only a couple of sizes (wouldn't it be nice if they were standardized and interchangeable for all machines?).