My Pesky Missing Presser Foot

The other day, I learned a new technique for attaching binding to a quilt from front to back (by machine) that doesn't look horrible, and if I can master the technique I can significantly increase the chances of finishing a quilt in a reasonable amount of time. It's not that I don't enjoy hand stitching the binding, but on some projects, that is just overkill, especially when I want to just finish them to get them off the list of UFOs. I got the tip from my friends over at Stashbusters.

After learning the technique, I was anxious to try it on a quilt that came back from the long-armer a few months ago, and I knew I had all the right tools in my studio, so off I went to grab my machine & my brand new stitch-in-the-ditch foot that I've had all of 3 weeks. It wasn't there. I searched high and low. In my head, I was replaying my last clean up day with the Swiffer across the floor, and I can hear an unfamiliar scraping underneath the broom that I dismissed at the time as a pin, but now I believe that it was my presser foot on the floor that I swept up & threw away.

Believe me, I looked EVERYWHERE and even went through the studio garbage (before you say yuck - the studio garbage is mostly floor trimmings, batting, threads, etc.) Over the past couple of weeks, I have renewed my searches, to no avail.

I never did find that missing presser foot, so I decided I had to replace it. It originally came in a pack of 3 assorted presser feet, but when I went back to the Viking store the lady there didn't seem to know that such a pack of feet existed. I did see the one I wanted in their shop, but I wasn't going to pay $40 for one foot when I'd gotten 3 of them for $40 before. So I went on-line, found a source for presser feet, and decided to get my stitch-in-the-ditch foot and a 5mm hemmer. I figure those will be the two more useful feet to me right now, so I was able to replace the foot I really wanted, and get another useful foot in the meantime.

They arrived yesterday in a sturdy box, they are genuine Viking parts, and so I am willing to plug the supplier for sending my feet in a timely manner at a great price. So if any of you need replacement parts (and they have parts that fit many types of machines), I encourage you to visit John Maerz at Discount Sewing Machine Service.

Happy quilting!