SPEED SEWING with BINDERS FOLDERS, SPECIALTY PRESSER FEET & SERGERS
Speed Sewing Tips Tricks & Tools
ATLANTA Attachments
My favorite cutting tools are a cutting mat, & a rotary cutter. There are a variety of sizes, I have 2, & while I have scissors & shears, I do not use them for cutting out entire patterns anymore, just because the rotary cutters are so much easier to use, & much more accurate. If you have trouble cutting fabric pieces the correct size, due to jagged edges when you cut out the pattern pieces, try the rotary cutters with the mat, they are expensive to start with, but absolutely worth every penny!
Cleaning & rejuvenating your cutting mat-
http://www.patchworkquiltpattern.com/2017/05/Tips-olfa-mat-cutter.html
If you are going to sew a LOT, where you are trying to produce many identical items, you may need to consider an industrial rotary cutter, to save an enormous amount of time & effort, making it possible to produce far more product, in a much shorter time. Be sure you choose one for the type of electrical system you have, whether it is 110 home type of electrical outlets, or 220 industrial electrical system. It is important to follow safety guidelines, & wearing a glove made of stainless steel chain, helps protect your free hand from being cut accidentally, by this rapidly rotating super sharp rotary blade, like this one I found on eBay.
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| Left to right, pattern nipper (NOT for fabric, for paper only), small rotary cutter, wood block with buttonhole knife & changeable extra wide blade, nippers, Gingher Applique "duckbill" scissors, pinking shears, and 12 1/4" Shears (Tailor's shears) back row, above buttonhole knife, small rotary cutter edge guide, screws into side of small rotary cutter, for adding a seam allowance when cutting fabric, around the original fitting pattern (saves making a separate pattern from paper), large rotary cutter, Yamata electric rotary cutter, with 110 electrical setup (also available in 220) |
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| Standard set (varied over the years) of Singer straight stitch sewing machine feet adjustable binder, shirring foot, adjustable zipper foot, ruffler, front row left to right edgestitcher, behind it, is the bias tape cutting guide for scissors, rolled hemmer, adjustable hemmer, seam guide with thumbscrew |
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| Factories & professional sewing workers use mechanical folders & binders, & other special accessories, which they attach to the sewing machine bed, or even on industrial sergers & coverstitch machines, to complete 2 or 3 sewing tasks in 1 step, instead of several steps. This photo shows a large batch of folders I purchased on Ebay, for an excellent price. Some guides on industrial machines, are suspended, while other guides can be attached to a "swing away" guide, which can attach to the 2 bed screws, for ensured accuracy (one screw, allows too much pivoting movement), allows the machine operator to swing the guide out of the way, without removing it from the bed of the machine, for continual sewing, without having to constantly attach, remove, then reattach the guides, as they sew. Many of these are adjustable, those with only 2 round holes, will fit the same way, always, but those with a rectangular or oval opening for the screws, can work on various machines, and be adjusted for different distances from the needle. In some cases, an air compressor is attached to air tubes, to special guides & attachments, to help ensure smooth feeding of fabric, ribbons, cording, elastic, or the other various notions being applied, during sewing. This is not common in small shops, typically, but more often is encountered in the very high speed industrial sewing factories. Rolls of lace, ribbon, cording, elastic, bias binding, piping, and other notions are fed by hand in home sewing, or from the lap, but in factory & high speed sewing, a special "tape cloth bias roll holder reel with attaching clamp", or similarly named reel guide, for sewing the bias tape, & other rolled goods, onto sewn items. They can be simple affairs, or have multiple guides, and mounts, for more than one notion to be applied, at a time, some even have a special spring action tension function, to avoid product unrolling too fast, and becoming tangled. SPECIALTY PRESSER FEETSewing machine presser feet range from the "usual" basic presser feet, straight stitch, zigzag, rolled hemmer, ruffler, tucker, binder, to a huge range of specialty presser feet, both for home sewing machines, and industrial sewing machines. The right presser foot can take a tedious, difficult sewing task, that takes hours, without the specialty presser feet, to something that can literally be sewn in seconds, or a few minutes, and is absolutely perfect, the very first time!
WARNING!! It is essential that you use feet which are the correct size & type for your specific sewing machine, and while some machines can share the same presser feet, with no problems, other machines will have the needle hole in a different position, so that using the wrong presser foot, may lead to the needle hitting the presser foot, damaging the machine, possibly knocking it out of timing, breaking the needle, & possibly injuring the person sewing, if needle pieces go flying, a common occurrence, when trying presser feet on the wrong sewing machine, if you haven't first turned the handwheel by hand, to ensure that the needle fits smoothly in the needle hole of the presser foot, without touching the presser foot. For expensive brands of sewing machines, the presser foot system is usually designed specifically to be different from other brands of sewing machine feet, so that you must purchase their expensive proprietary presser feet & attachments, and while this may sound frustrating, to those who can't afford all the specialty presser feet, the company does have to have income to survive, and this is one of the few ways they can hedge against inexpensive machines, & cheap imported feet, but it also ensures that the expensive proprietary presser feet, should fit & function properly, with no worries about damaging the machine, or injuring yourself, trying another companies' feet and attachments. Bernina, Husqvarna, and Pfaff, are good examples of companies with proprietary presser feet systems (Pfaff sometimes used a regular low shank foot system, but switched to a proprietary super high shank type, for a while, so not all Pfaff feet, or shanks, will fit all Pfaff machines), and they constantly change them, because they need you to buy new feet, when you buy new machines, if you can simply use your old presser feet, from the machine you traded in on your new one, they won't make as much money. While you usually get approximately a 20 year window of time (in the past, prior to 2019), where you could purchase the feet for you machine, new, at the dealership, but once the old style of feet are sold out, dealerships will not always have the older styles of presser feet available. That being said, I really began to appreciate specialty presser feet, when I had the opportunity to purchase, and sew with vintage Bernina sewing machines, from the 530-2, to the 731, 830, 910, 930, 1008, because the specialty presser feet were also well described, with excellent instructions and photos of how to use them, either in the machine manual, the instructions that came with the new presser foot, or through their "Feetures", or "Footworks" manuals and workbooks. Bernina also supports their presser feet & attachments, through free online videos, and you can print out most Bernina home sewing machine manuals for free, for a period of years after they stop making that specific model. Good customer support, high quality machines, manuals, presser feet & attachments, are all excellent reasons to stick with a special brand. Snap on presser feetToday, most new sewing machines come with a snap on ankle shank, and a variety of specialty presser feet, which easily snap on & off, there are even sets of generic snap on presser feet available for sale, with anywhere from one foot, to 50+ presser feet! Most home sewers will never need this many presser feet, but if you really enjoy trying all kinds of sewing techniques, and sew costumes, home decorating, do any reupholstering work, or other sewing intensive tasks, having the right specialty presser feet can save an enormous amount of time, and make it easier to sew with difficult fabrics & notions. There are a few very important issues to keep in mind, when trying snap on presser feet, which did not come from your machine's manufacturer, for your specific machine.9 NEEDLE HOLE POSITION- When trying snap on presser feet that did not come with your sewing machine, ALWAYS test first, by turning the handwheel by hand, to lower the needle, and ensure that the needle goes down into the correct needle opening in the presser foot. If you don't, the needle may accidentally hit the presser foot, which can snap the needle, splintering it, send sharp metal fragments flying, so testing is extremely important. Not only can you be injured by flying needle fragments, but your machine can be knocked out of timing, even permanently broken, if the needle comes down fast, on a metal presser foot. The needle hole is NOT always located the same distance from the presser foot shank, even in machines which use the same shank type. 
Some machines have multi needle position, others do not. Some machines have the needle "home" position for straight stitching only on the left end of the needle opening. Other machines have a center "home" needle position. With these last 2 types of machines, it is even more important to match the feed dogs to the presser foot bottom, because you cannot change the needle position to make up for the needle being in the wrong position for the sewing task you hope to accomplish. Not all needle openings are the same size, or location. Straight stitch only sewing machines have only a small round needle opening, but zigzag machines can have anywhere from a 3mm wide needle opening, to a 9 mm wide needle opening (companies keep trying to outdo each other, don't be surprised to see wider ones), so it is essential to match presser feet with that needle opening width, and make sure that when the foot is attached to the shank, the needle still stays within the needle opening, safely. I've discovered that some presser feet sets will almost all sewing machines, but sometimes, the needle and needle hole will be too far forward, or back, to work, but sometimes trying a different snap on ankle shank will solve this problem. FEED DOG POSITION- In order for a presser foot to actually function properly, the feed dogs must line up with the portion of the presser feet, where the presser foot holds the fabric against the feed dogs. If you try sewing a rolled hem, for example, but use a foot that only one side of the feed dogs, line up against the presser foot, the fabric may feed sideways, or not at all. If you try using too narrow of presser feet on sewing machine with a very wide presser foot system & feed dogs, not only will your fabric not feed correctly, you may actually damage your fabric, so it is important to always consider feed dog width, feed dog position, needle position, needle opening width and position, when trying different presser feet. INDUSTRIAL PRESSER FEET Typically, there are far more presser feet styles & types made for the standard high shank lock stitch sewing machines, than for any other brands or types of sewing machines, because of the need to accomplish multiple sewing tasks, in one super fast, super accurate sewing task. Much of the standard sewing tasks we are used to seeing in store bought clothing, requires multiple styles of presser feet, & several different types of sewing machines, and stitch types, in order to be completed. compensating foot- excellent for stitching along a thick seam, or hem, or various fabric thickness edge guide foot- various widths of guide from needle opening compensating foot with edge guide- various sizes & widths, elasticator foot- allows elastic to be both stretched, and stitched, in one step, adjustable piping foot- single, double, various sizes, for both making piping & sewing it to projects shirring foot- gathering fabric, amount of gathers according to fabric type, stitch length, & tightened upper tension roller foot- comes in various sizes & configurations, sometimes requiring a special needleplate & feed dog plate velvet foot- very narrow foot, with straight stitch needle hole in the center, sews velvet more easily zipper foot- various widths & sizes teflon foot- all sizes & types, the teflon helps sticky fabrics feed better, like vinyl, leather, rubberized, etc.  SERGERS
Sergers are one of the FASTEST ways to get sewing projects done. Not all sewing can be done on a serger, but those which can, because the serger trims the edge, sews the seam, then overlocks the edge, protecting it from fraying, it gives the most professional finish, faster than most regular home sewing machines.
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I really like the organizers inserts & the tray for my Bernina presser feet, for my old style Bernina sewing machines. I attached a miniature printout of the Quick Reference Guide, to my organizer tray, for easy identification of which presser feet I have.
presser feet are numbered, have the widest variety of presser feet types I had ever seen, before I got into industrial sewing!
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Sewing Workbooks are an excellent way to learn how to use your sewing machine to it's maximum potential. Most sewing machine shops also sell workbooks, & sometimes even include free classes, in the price of the sewing machine. Step by step instructions, photos, & a chance to sew them in a class, under the tutelage of an expert, is a great way to learn specialty features, & how to make your sewing look professional.
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