[meleliza]

Any tips on edge stitching neatly on those tiny tiny straps? I never seem to get my top or edge stitching as precut as I’d like. And those little straps get caught in the machine sometimes. Plus, and this really bothers me, my machine does not have a right hand needle position! I end up topstitching with the bulk of my fabric to the right if I want to use the topstitching foot. Totally messed up.

[Sarvi]

Ah, my suggestion was going to be to set your needle off-center. Could you attach the strap to a wider piece of fabric with masking tape to give the feed dogs something to grab?

[Toyota888]

On thin things I sometimes use my “walking foot” / “even feed foot” which the huge one with the little box out the back that you buy specially – it really grabs things and pulls them through. Before I got this my thin straps always looked mangled at the ends in particular.

[meleliza]

I’ve never tried to use the walking foot for this. Do you just eyeball the edge stitching? Or does it also have some markings to help keep things straight?

Sarvi, I just last night – after 6 months found a stitch that positions the needle to the right for me! Yea! It’s called a piecing stitch in my Brother manual, hidden away somewhere at the end. No wonder it took so long to figure that out! I’m still learning about all the gadgets but this makes me much happier about the thing.

[Sarvi]

Nice! That’ll be so helpful. I know exactly what you mean — I keep discovering things my machine can do that make me smack my head at the thought of the elaborate workarounds I’d been using before.

[meleliza]

Well, this one was pretty well hidden. I didn’t smack myself so much as curse the manufactuer. 🙂 I made another little popover yesterday and it went pretty well. Instead of tie straps, I made on continuous piece. I think that made it a little easier to sew actually.

[Loralee]

A tip I learned somewhere was to put tissue paper underneath those troublesome narrow straps or ties and sew as you normally would. It keeps them from getting pulled into your machine then you can just tear the paper away. Saved my machine and mental capacity while working on the ties for the bedtime story pjs! 😉 Whenever anyone gets a present, the tissue paper goes in my sewing supplies.

[meleliza]

Thanks, Loralee. I actually just saw that trick on sewing pattern review as well. It does help.