BERNINA Ambassador
I'm beyond excited to share some big news with you today! I'm a BERNINA Ambassador!! I've been sewing on a BERNINA since birth so it's no surprise that I still love them. I currently stitch on a BERNINA 530 Swiss Edition (It's red and adorable!) and travel with a BERNINA 350 Special Edition. There are lots of reasons why it is my machine of choice, but it all comes back to this.
Perfect stitches every time. They're straight. They're consistent. I know exactly what I'm going to get. It's all about the stitching. As I was thinking about sharing this news, I came up with a few ideas on what to talk about; there will be lots of fun things to come with this opportunity. There are some tutorials already in the works for the We All Sew blog that I'm pretty pumped to share. But I decided to talk about my favorite BERNINA feet. Here is my top five!The #37This little gem is commonly referred to as the quarter inch foot. Piecing for quilting would not be the same without it. It's so easy to get a perfect 1/4" seam every time! This foot basically lives on my machine. I get asked a lot why I use the 1/4" foot without the guard. (The #57 has a guard along the right edge.) The easiest answer is that I've been using a 1/4" foot longer than the #57 has been around. The other reason is that I can see everything better. I know exactly what the right edge of my foot looks like when the fabric is perfectly aligned with the foot. If you like the guard, use it! If you've never tried it, try it! You might find that the guard makes it easier for you. I'm a big believer in trying them all!
The #39This is the foot I use for decorative stitching. I used to prefer an open toe foot (#20) until I discovered this perfect foot. It's clear so you can easily see everything and it smooths out the fabric as it stitches. I've found with an open toe foot, you would get bunching of the fabric in the middle; that never happens with this foot. I use it for all of my machine appliqué and fancy stitching. There is a center red mark on this foot that is great for when I'm doing machine appliqué.
The #29There are SO MANY options for free motion quilting feet! I've tried them all and this is the one that I come back to again and again. It's not too large, but I find that it smooths the fabric as I work. It rarely gets hung up on a seam because the edges are slightly rounded. Plus, I can see everything because it is clear. I definitely recommend trying them all and finding what works for you.The #54If you've ever tried to stitch on vinyl, you'll understand why a teflon foot is genius. The teflon makes the foot glide over the vinyl like it is fabric. I have the zipper teflon because most of the time that I am stitching on vinyl, I am putting in a zipper. I tend to use vinyl on pouches. It's easy to straight stitch with the zipper foot when needed as shown here.
The #10There is no way that I could write about my favorite feet and not mention the #10. Any comment that I've ever received on straight top stitching, I owe to this foot. It has a little guard that glides along the edge of the fabric so that your stitching is straight. It's magical. Completely magical. You can also try a blind hem foot (#5 on BERNINA) as it has a similar guard. It's not the same, but in a pinch, it works!
BONUS: The Walking FootI had to put in one more! We've all watched as the feed dogs move our fabric along from below. Well, the walking foot basically is a feed dog for the top of your fabric. It works well when there are multiple layers, such as straight line quilting. I use it a lot in bag making too!
This is where my feet live! This box came with the original 830 that my mother bought not long after I was born. She then passed it on to me. While I've moved on to newer machines, the box stayed.
Happy Stitching!xx LC