BY: Leila Makes
With the winter season, I’ve been on quite the quilt kick and have been attaching bias binding to many of my projects with reckless abandon.. which made me wonder, is there a more efficient way to attach my bias binding? 🙂 If you are like me, you’ll want to try any tool that makes your sewing practice easier… enter: the Janome Tape Guide Foot!
The Tape Guide (TG) Foot is best for 5-20mm (~¼ to ¾ in) wide binding, and can be used to apply binding to facing edges in garments or even house coats, like I am doing here. Note: I used 20mm bias binding for this project.
Supplies Needed:
- Janome Tape Guide (TG) Foot
- Janome HD9 machine or other compatible model that works with the Tape Guide Foot
- Bias binding (5-20mm wide)
- Project that needs binding 🙂
Steps:
There are curved plastic edges on the left side of the foot that keep binding straight and neat
Pre-press your tape to create double fold binding if you’re not using pre-made binding tape
Machine settings for the TG foot:
- Thread tension: 3-5
- Stitch length: 0.5-4mm
Foot pressure: 3-5
Insert your tape through the TG foot tape guide and adjust your TG foot slider according to your tape width. To begin, sew only the tape together
The TG foot has a plastic guide with red lines that denote tape width measurements (5-20mm) and has an adjustable screw so that you can move the guide according to your binding width
Then insert your fabric to be bound inside the TG foot with your sewn binding. Guide the fabric with your left hand and tape with your right hand as you sew
PRACTICE FIRST! I dove right into binding my house coat and there were many trial & error moments (i.e., seam ripping) of holding the tape in the correct orientation to keep it straight with the fabric edge. I highly recommend doing some practice runs on a scrap piece of fabric to get the hang of holding the fabric and binding as you sew a straight edge and/or curved edge, depending on your project.
I pressed my fabric to compress my batting before attaching my binding. Be aware that attaching binding to thicker fabrics like quilted fabric will work best after a good press. It is also a good practice to press any curved binding edges before attaching as well so that the binding has some curve memory before sewing it to the fabric curved edge.
Voilà! I hope you enjoy this run-through on how to use the Janome Tape Guide Foot with the HD9 machine and I hope this sparks creative energy in your upcoming projects that include binding 🙂