Originally Posted by
ro
yes i lose it at the end. i dont understand why the quarter inch foot w/the bar is not a quarter of an inch. that's what bothers me.
Sometimes it's also the "quality" of the 1/4" foot. The Alphasew one (The P604xx part number ones that most shops sell for generic feet) have a guide that moves around a bit. sometimes it's scant, sometimes it's beyond full.
Also, and I learned this on my featherweight, if you have a marked throat plate that has indentations for the lines, the blade of the 1/4" foot can dance around and between the 2 of them become very inaccurate.
When the ladies in our quilting group buy these feet off me, I tell them that a 1/4" foot is what I call an "up to 1/4" " foot. You can still veer off the other way and end up with a seam that's way too small, or wavy.
My cousin noticed how terribly slowly I sew when I'm trying to be accurate, and how many times I still had to stop and adjust the fabric. She said to stop looking at the needle, and find a point either at the beginning of the foot, or even closer to you that you can line up with. That way, you still have time to correct before it gets to the needle and is wrong. It's made a huge difference in my sewing. I now have painter's tape all over the bed of my machine (not the featherweight!) for the center seam in a HST, or for joining binding, and for the 1/4" line. This helps me make less jagged corrections right at the needle.
Also, I tried BellaBoo's trick, and it does make a difference as well. (Thanks BellaBoo!)
Originally Posted by
Rodney
Every machine is different. Your 1/4 inch foot was 1/4 to whoever measured it on the machine it was made for. Manufacturing tolerances play a part too. If your machine has an adjustable needle you may be able to get a true 1/4 inch that way. <snip>
On the Pfaff, I set the needle one notch to the right of center to get a good 1/4". Of course if your 1/4" foot has a straight stitch hole, as the Pfaff one does, you have only about that much adjustment. Some of the SS holes in the feet are bigger than others, so watch out.</snip>