<![CDATA[JANOME FOOT OF THE MONTH: CLOTH GUIDE]]>Well, technically the Janome cloth guide is not a foot……..but it is a machine attachment which comes standard with many of our machine models and which is worth its weight in gold!  There are several types of Janome cloth guides and you might recognise one or more of them in the pic below. Perhaps you are not sure what it is for or how to use it?

  1. This guide is sometimes also called the seam guide and comes standard with some of our machines. It can also be purchased as an optional accessory. 
    The next photo shows it attached to the machine. The green (or other colour?) screw allows you to move the guide left to right to vary the width of seam or top stitching you may require.

2. The photo below shows our clear plexiglass cloth guide which comes standard with some other models in our Janome line. It can be used on some models with a free arm as it clips or slides onto the free arm and then is manually moved side to side to obtain the width away from the stitching required for the project. The fabric edge feeds against the little “wall” or guide. It is most effective for many different applications from 1/4 inch piecing to sewing deep hems on projects like aprons or drapes.

This shows how the cloth guide clips onto the back of the free arm.

3. The next option is a fully automated cloth guide which attaches to the closed embroidery arm of some of our embroidery machine models. It attaches with a very similar turn key as with the embroidery hoops.  Generally this cloth guide is a standard accessory with these embroidery machine models.

The operation of the cloth guide is done on the LCD screen of the machine under the cloth guide icon.

There is a wide range of measurements available and in tiny increments of 1/16 of an inch. (These measurements are also available as metric by simply choosing the unit of measurement in the SET menu.)

Here the cloth guide has been set at 5/8 inch. The black fabric is lined up against the cloth guide and is 5/8 inch away from the needle. This works well for any measurement from 0-8 1/4 inches

Lots of options for measuring the amount of seam you want; or the distance you may wish top stitching or decorative embellishment from the edge of something. For example, a cute little decorative stitch 2 or 3 inches up from the bottom of a hemline? Or a line of top stitching further away from the edge of the fabric than guiding along one of our Jnaome feet will allow?

Janome sure thinks of everything! 

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