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Janome Taping Guide Foot
Whether you make your own binding tape or purchase packaged bias tape, a cleanly bound edge is the perfect finish for so many projects. It’s definitely one of our favorites. However, getting a smooth and even edge along a skinny binding can be challenging. And we all know, the first thing that will keep you up at night is wavy topstitching. Well, there are probably other things keeping you up at night, but we’re kind of obsessed with straight seams. Hallelujah, there’s a new specialty presser foot from Janome that is letting us get a bit more shut eye: the Taping Guide Foot!
This foot can help you attach tape evenly and smoothly to the edge of your fabric. Adjust it to handle widths from 5mm to 20mm. You can use both single fold and double fold binding styles, either tape you’ve made yourself or packaged options.
There is one version for Janome 9mm maximum stitch width machines (as shown in our images), and a second version for 7mm maximum stitch width machines.
In the photos below we’re using a standard packaged bias tape (Wrights Extra Wide Double Fold).
We show all the set-up steps with the foot already attached to the machine, which is standard. If you find it difficult to thread the tape while working with your hands right up under the head of the machine, you can thread the tape through the guides of the foot first, and then attach it to the machine.
Turn the nut at the side of the foot to open the slider so you have plenty of side-to-side room for insertion.
Insert the tape into the guide. The opening of the tape is facing left, towards the guides. You can slide it in from the side, then open it up into the upper and lower guides…
… or you can insert it directly into the guides from the front. We found this option to be the easiest, especially after cutting the end of the tape at a slight angle.
Again using the nut at the side of the foot, re-adjust the slider to fit the width of the tape and hold it in place.
Adjust the position of the guide under the needle with the thumbscrew at the back of the foot. This allows you to get the needle drop as close to the edge of the binding tape as you need for your project. You can fine tune this position by changing your needle position. We moved our needle to the left of center just a bit (from 4.5 to 5.0) for the best “bite.”
Insert the fabric between the upper and lower guides so the fold of the tape is wrapping the fabric’s raw edge(s). With the double layer of quilting cotton, we were able to simply slip the fabric in between the guides.
With the denim and fleece, we spread the guides apart every so slightly with a fingernail to help feed the thicker fabric into place.
If your project allows, we found it was nice to be able to leave an inch or two of tape extending beyond your fabric in order to be able to start stitching on the tape, continuing onto and across the fabric with a beautifully smooth seam.
Stitch through all the layers at a medium speed, guiding the main fabric with your left hand and the binding tape with your right.
The foot allows you to catch both the front and back of the binding. We purposefully stitched very, very close to the edge in order to show you what a nice, tight seam you can get. None of the samples required any pinning.
The double layer of denim stitched just as beautifully as the cotton.
The single layer of fleece also worked well, although we found that holding up the fabric/binding and feeding it down and in resulted in the best finish.
Check with your local authorized Janome dealer to pick up a Taping Guide Foot for your machine. It is currently available in two sizes, one for Janome top loading 9mm stitch width models and a second one for horizontal rotary hook models with either 7mm or 5mm stitch width.
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Your example is on a straight
Your example is on a straight edge. Does this foot do corners or curves as on a quilt? How do the opposing ends of the binding get joined? If this works on quilts, it would be great. Others I have tried don’t do corners or curves very well. Hope this one is better.
@gracious – as mentioned in @gracious – as mentioned in the follow-up to comments below, doing corners requires stopping, folding, and re-setting — just like with any kind of foot. Janome actually makes a specific foot for quilt binding, so that may be a better option if you are really looking for something just for quilting. S4H isn’t really a quilting-specific site, so we are thrilled with how it worked to bind the straight edges that could become the top of a bag, the edge of a pocket, etc. We did not test it on curves, but you could certainly… Read more »
Hello,
Hello,
Does it work on the Janome 8900qcp?
Thanks,
Jeanne
We don’t have info on every
We don’t have info on every single model, and although I don’t see this machine in the “official” list on the Janome website, it was a special edition model and so might not be in the permanent list. However, it is a standard 9mm and several of the similar 9mm Memory Craft models are listed. It should be fine. You can always check with your local Janome dealer to be 100% sure.
What is your opinion of using
What is your opinion of using this to bind a quilt? Will it do corners?
@Rosalene – We’re not
@Rosalene – We’re not quilting experts here at Sew4Home, but the thicknesses inherent in most quilting projects might not make this perfect. Janome actaully makes a Quilt Binding Set, that is set-up to feed and fold the binding in a quilting situation. A link is included below for a page and video tutorial from Janome. Yes it can handle corners, in the same manner as any foot, you need to stop, re-fold and re-set to make a pretty corner.
http://www.janome.com/en/accessories/sewing-machine-feet/quilt-binder-set/
I have a Singer sewing
I have a Singer sewing machine. Do you happen to know if the Janome feet fit on Singer machines?
@Caroline – You’d want to
@Caroline – You’d want to check with your local dealer. Traditionally presser feet work best within brand, but sometimes there are exceptions. We only tested the foot on our Janome studio machines.
Thank you for all your
Thank you for all your amazing tutorials!
I do have a Taping Guide Foot, but I have no idea how to deal with corners so I haven’t been using it. Do you have some advice?
@Maria – Cornering can be
@Maria – Cornering can be handled similarly to doing a standard corner. Stitch into the corner, stopping a seam allowance’s width from the point of the corner, remove from the machine, fold the tape to create your diagonal point corner, reset under the foot, drop in the needle exactly where you stopped, and stitch the next corner.
https://sew4home.com/tips-resources/sewing-tips-tricks/complete-step-step-binding-quilts-throws