I love teaching all about machine quilting. And we’ve been doing a ton of videos for
you on free motion but I’m getting a lot of questions about how to do stitch in the
ditch. How to use a walking foot. Well that’s what today’s tutorial is all about.
Before we jump into the how to’s of the walking foot and some stitch in the ditch,
let’s talk about when you would use it because you know I love the free motion to be able
to go all over. But a walking foot’s job is kind of like the four wheel drive in your
pickup. It’s going to help us get all of our layers to start and finish correctly.
And my best example is a T-shirt quilt. And if you haven’t done T-shirt quilts, yes
I’m already dreaming up a project for you. At the moment I’m going to turn you onto
the book to get your brain going, right? And on this T-shirt quilt I have here on the set,
it is a bunch of small and/or large pieces from our T-shirt that’s usually stabilized
then with an interfacing, and this one is even built on minky. So what I’m really
trying to tell you is these layers want to go everywhere. And it’s a big project, right?
Usually t-shirt quilts are these wonderful big gifts. So to get from one end to the other
we might have our three layers start to shift because of the way the sewing machine is designed
with only the feed system below. Well a walking foot is this wild looking tool here, right?
And it’s job really is to be activated by the needle as well. So while the needle is
going it makes it move with the rest. But what’s happening is there’s a set of four
wheel drive, right? You’re getting that posi-traction coming down below the foot from
the top and it’s locking in with your lower feed system to help all those layers travel
together.
So the first question I often get is how do you put it on the machine. So let’s go to
the machine real quick. And in the printable below we’ve got a nice little layout that’s
got some images for you. But here I’m going to walk you through it in the video. The first
thing we need to do is we need to remove the original sewing foot. Usually that’s done
with a screw here. And once the foot is off, on this particular walking foot I actually
have a hole there instead of a slide like the other foot. So I’m going to have to
remove the entire screw. Ok, we need that handy. Don’t lose that. You cannot find
those at the hardware store. And then the other thing is this little part here that
goes up and down, I’m going to need to get that around over here where the needle is
held into the machine at the same time that I’m kind of lining up this hole where the
foot came off over there. So I kind of bring it around like yay. And I’m watching first
to make sure that I get the bar around the screw holder. And then I’m looking to the
other side to make sure I’ve lined up that hole like that. And then I can lower the presser
foot. And I always finger tighten the screw. And that will make sure that you’re getting
your threads in there right. And you can see I’m adjusting the presser foot a little
bit just to let that hang nice. And then once I’m confident that the threads are going
together well then I can come in here and tighten this up with a screwdriver. Let’s
talk about that t-shirt quilt again for another second because I want you to think about the
girth of a giant like king size t-shirt quilt. Lots and lots and lots of stitches and the
fibration of the machine moving with this little clamp around the needle screw could
cause your needle to start to loosen up. So what I like to do is when I’m changing bobbins,
when I’m doing stitch in the ditch I always come back in here with my screwdriver and
I also make sure that my needle screw has remained tight. Some walking feet will even
come with a little piece of rubber that goes around the needle screw to help eliminate
that vibration, ok?
Now let’s go back to the project. We have the foot in place. We are doing stitch in
the ditch so that means that my feed dogs are also up on the bottom of the machine.
So I’m making sure I’ve done that. My stitch length is going to be set to about
a 2 ½. I’ve done that on the machine. But now I want to talk about with free motion
we generally start in the middle of our project and we radiate outward. The reason we do that
is we can assume that our quilt top, the bigger the top the more it’s going to grow. So
we always have extra batting and extra backing past our quilt top. So as we free motion it
pushes all of that to the outside. Start in the center, go in all directions. With stitch
in the ditch however what we’re going to generally do is we’re going to start at
one side and we’re going to sew all the way to the other side of the project. Or the
runs within the blocks. Watch this.What I’m really trying to say is when I look at this
project, I’m going to find my shortest seams that help go across the majority of the project.
And this seam across the center here and these seams are shorter runs than using this whole
long seam over here. So the very first stitching I would do is I”m going to start over here
and I’ll show you here in a second. And I’m going to go down this way. But to keep
our layers traveling appropriately with stitch in the ditch these two I’m going to go back
this direction. So one, two, three that way I’m making sure that I’m pushing and pulling
the batting within the quilt.
So now I bring this over to the machine. And I’m looking at the needle . If you want
to be really good you can lower my hand and make sure that needle is in there. And then
one of the things I do is I kind of use my hands but they’re back over here. But I’m
kind of using my hands to pull away the seam a little bit so that the needle will hopefully
lay right in there. Of course you could echo quilt the ditch by a quarter of an inch . If
you’re looking really close you can see I used red thread when piecing the block.
Ok so I’m just in that ditch like that. I get confident I’m going to pick up the
pace a little bit. I also readjust my hands. Ok so now I’m at this other end. Let’s
lock that stitching in. We cut our thread here. Now remember I came down this way so
for this one I’m going to rotate. And now I’m down over here on the next seam that’s
in alignment. Lock that stitching in. Separate your fabric. Ok, to this end. Let’s back
that up, lock it in. And I went that same direction now I’m just going to scoot this
down here. Lock it in. Now the walking foot is doing all the work. So I’m just steering.
I’m just guiding that seam right in front of my needle. I’m not pushing or pulling
because I want all those layers to be affected by the four wheel drive that’s doing now,
ok? I thought I was in free motion mode. I tried to pull back on the quilt. Did you see
that? I forgot. I’m such a free motion quilter I forgot the feed dogs were working for me.
As I’m telling you the feed dogs were working for you. My goodness. Do what I say not what
I do sometimes around here, right?
Ok so yes I stitched these three seams now. So basically that’s been anchored. My next
choice would be to either go around this diamond. That’s what I would prefer to do. You could
also look on this outer edge. But if you go around that outer edge you might find that
you start to get some pucker in there. But when I do get to the outer edge, again I’m
going to start on one side. I’m going to go down this way and I’m going to come back
the opposite direction. So while you’re doing that stitch in the ditch it’s just
a little bit of give and take with the whole project so that when you’re done all of
your layers are nice and smooth. And all of the quilting is finished. And then at that
point all you have to do is square her back up, put your binding on. Ready for a label
and a fantastic gift. So what do I want to know from you today in the comments. Something
completely different. I want to hear about your very favorite t-shirt. I’ve got a stack
this tall that will be a quilt very soon right here at Man Sewing.
Thanks for being a Man Sewing fan. It’s great to have you out there encouraging me
to create fantastic new content. If you’ve missed any of the videos we’ve got links
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