Sewing Machine Feet: The 1/4″ Patchwork Foot
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Inside: Sewing Machine Feet: The 1/4″ Patchwork Foot
A while back I wrote a series of posts about different sewing machine feet. At the time I wasn’t that into quilting so I never did a post about the 1/4″ Patchwork Foot. That ends today.
The 1/4″ Patchwork Foot (sometimes called a Quilting Foot) is invaluable to quilters. It helps achieve a Perfect Quilting Seam Allowance. which means your quilt blocks will be consistent in size. For instance, if you’re trying to make a 12″x 12″ finished quilt block with several pieces and you don’t have accurate seam allowances, your overall quilt block could be off by more than a half inch.
And that will affect the overall size of your quilt, not to mention individual pieces matching up as you connect the blocks.
The Solution
To avoid these difficulties when piecing a quilt, use a 1/4″ Patchwork Foot. It allows you to have consistent seam allowances in all of your blocks. And that means the seams in your finished blocks will match perfectly when you go to put them together.
This small quilt is a perfect example of why you would want your individual blocks to be exact. If the seams were off by even 1/8″ these individual pieces would not match up. (If you look closely, you might be able to spot where this happened!)
The Details of the 1/4″ Patchwork Foot
This foot is designed to sew a consistent 1/4″ seam allowance because it lines up next to the raw edge of the fabric when sewing.
Most manufacturers will add markings or notches to the foot. These are usually spaced 1/4″ apart and help you know when to stop or turn.
Guided Sewing
Some manufacturers also have a 1/4″ patchwork foot with a guide. The guide is intended to ride on the outside edge of the seam. This keeps you from making too large of a seam allowance and then messing up the size of your quilt.
Sewing with the Foot
This image shows a triangle piece being attached to a square piece. Notice how the edge of the foot aligns with the raw edge of the fabric. This is the correct position for sewing a consistent 1/4″ seam allowance.
Now look at the finished block. Being inconsistent with seam allowances means none of the triangles would match and my points might get chopped off. This would affect the overall look in an entire quilt.
Because I used a 1/4″ Patchwork Foot, all of the seams went together correctly allowing for precision points and a 1/4″ seam allowance around the entire block. This sort of accuracy means none of the points will get chopped off when putting blocks together in a quilt.
Using a 1/4″ Patchwork Quilting Foot is an absolute when piecing a quilt. It will allow to achieve consistently sized blocks with seams that match up when you connect them together in a quilt.
And your quilt blocks will turn out beautifully every time!
