What is a walking foot and what do you use it for?
A Walking Foot is a foot that is used on sewing machines to help move multiple layers through the machine. It is great for quilting when you have a backing, batting, and the quilt top. It helps all three layers to stay in place and go under the foot at the same speed.
The walking foot essentially is like a regular sewing machine foot except that it has feet dogs attached to it. These top feed dogs match the bottom feed dogs and grab and pull the fabric on both sides.
The Walking foot has a clamp/hook that goes around the Needle Clamp Screw. As the needle moves up and down, the foot's mechanisms move the upper feed dogs.
In quilting, the walking foot is mostly used for quilting straight lines because the foot is pretty difficult to make tight turns.
Here is an example from my Big Purple Dahlia Quilt.
Here is an other example from the back of the Pink and Brown Star Quilt.
Walking Feet can also do gentile curves. Here is an example on a border of a landscape quilt. I was trying to make it look like wood grain.
My machine is a Brother Innovis 80. Each machine will be different. Check out your sewing machine's manufacturer for the specifics of a walking foot for your machine.
Have fun quilting!
