Rotary Even Foot :(

Janome Rotary Even Foot
Janome Rotary Even Foot

I had high hopes for the foot when I started to work on the covers for our dining room table leaves. I bought this foot when it came out new for my MC 9000.

Based on my reading, I thought this foot would help me put the binding on the covers evenly. I have never been adept at machine binding, but this tool seemed like it would solve my problems.

I started to worry, however, when I watched a few of the videos available on using the foot.  The videos I watched (4-5) did not show how miter or go around corners. The videos on attaching binding did not show how to start the foot and the binding nor did they say whether you needed extra at the end.  None of the videos showed a real project, only samples. None of the videos or the written directions talked about adjusting the pressure of the foot. I felt like the tractor foot wasn’t all the way down the whole time I was using it. I checked repeatedly and decided to leave it rather than getting out the machine manual.

Rotary Even Foot applying binding
Rotary Even Foot applying binding

I tried it anyway and determined that the foot might work well for machine quilting, but that my suspicions were true. The foot did not work well for applying the binding. It was hard to get the beginning of the quilted piece into the foot (not well documented in the videos or written directions). Once I was able to get the piece in, I found that the stitching line was nowhere near the edge of the binding, leaving a flap of fabric.  Once I fixed that, I found that the binding was not being applied evenly. Something was happening on the bottom of the piece (shifting due to operator error or machine error or foot error), so there were sections of the binding that were not sewed down.

One of the things I figured out was that I can probably use the tractor foot without the binding or hemming attachment for machine quilting.  One of my issues with machine quilting is seeing the stitch line while I am stitching. I think with this foot I would be able to see the stitching.

Sigh. I ended up doing a normal machine binding and decided not to care as long as it looked relatively decent.