Sewing with Sticky Fabrics

Portland’s rainy season is in full swing, so I’ve decided to embrace that fact and start projects that might actually make me welcome the rain, or at least not dread it as much. Bolt has an awesome selection of oil cloth and coated cotton right now, and I found the cutest bicycle print that was just begging to be made into a messenger bag. I hadn’t sewn with coated cotton before but I knew that it might stick to my presser foot and prove a little tricky to work with. Since I like to learn things the hard way, I decided to just go for it anyway with my regular zigzag foot. Surprise, surprise, the coated cotton stuck to my presser foot and was tricky to work with. It made my BERNINA’s usual perfect stitches look bunched up and uneven.

Luckily, BERNINA makes a zigzag foot with a sliding sole, #52, that glides over fabrics that stick, like leather, vinyl, oil cloth, and coated cotton. I won’t even tell you how much of the bag I made before I gave in and put the right foot on, because then you will know how stubborn I am. Let’s just say that once I started using the coated foot, I realized I probably could have finished the bag in half the time because the stitches weren’t dragging and bunching and generally misbehaving.

Give yourself the chance to try out this foot!  We’re offering this super cute Messenger Bag as a class. It’s from Oliver + S’s new book, Little Things to Sew, Sundays in May.  And don’t forget our BERNINA presser foot event going on NOW until March 20–Buy one, get one HALF off.