This little thing is magical. It’s a binding foot. I’ve had it for a couple of years but never got round to using it until this week, when I realised I was going to have to bind fifteen metres of raw edges on my mother’s kimono. I’d normally use a narrow hem for this, but that clearly wasn’t going to work with the poly brocade fabric we chose. It ravels as soon as you look at it. The edges show so binding it had to be. I armed myself with a large roll of satin bias binding and the binder foot instructions.
I am a girl racer on the sewing machine. I like to sew as fast as possible. This is probably the reason why I’ve never had great success with my rolled hem foot, which requires slow and careful feeding. Not so with the binder foot. It takes care of feeding the bias binding correctly all on its own. I just sat there keeping the cut fabric edge aligned with the foot and the pedal right down. Here it is in action.
The end result is pretty good. Right side.
Wrong side. I think if I was doing this again I’d probably reverse the fabric and feed it wrong side up to get the slightly narrower edge on the right side, but I’m still really pleased with the results.
Of course it wasn’t perfect from the start. I found the hardest thing was figuring out how to start and stop neatly – something the instructions that came with the foot didn’t mention at all. I had most success when I started by sewing just the binding with no fashion fabric. After a few stitches I stopped and inserted the fashion fabric into the foot, pushing it all the way to the point where the feed dogs would catch it. A tapestry needle was a great help for that.
At the end of an edge I found the best thing is to keep sewing right off the edge of the fabric. The foot is then sewing the binding together with no fabric between. Then cut the binding off behind the foot, insert the next edge at the front, and start sewing again.
The bound edge has a tendency to pucker slightly. A good press afterwards seems to help with that. Now onto the assembly of the kimono.
Catherine Daze's Blog 
Wow, that’s looking really nifty!
I didn’t even know about binding feet, although just this week I took delivery of a narrow-hem foot, a rolled-hem foot and an invisible zipper foot (haven’t tried them yet).
It looks like I’ll be following your recommendation again (I got the book last time) as I have to have a binding foot now. Today I cut out some unbelievably fraying silk and wondered how to easily bind all the edges. Your post was so timely for me.
Thanks for the tips and I think the kimono will be beautiful.
Oh, I want I want!!1
I had one on my old Singer treadle (learning to sew). I didn` use it much back then, but I`d sure use it a lot now!
You will definitely get a lot of practice with your binder foot with a kimono! I find any technique is essentially easy if you practice it. It’s all about getting to know your machine.
What a cool little foot, I might have to ask for one for my birthday!
I have a list of feet I need so I will be adding that one. Very nifty.
I will definitely get one of these before I attempt anything that needs a lot of binding – your results look great. I still haven’t managed to get a good result with my narrow hem foot either.
Oh so many cool notions and so little dosh with which to purchase them. This is up there on my list of ‘wants’ though. Thanks for the tips on starting and stopping with it – I’ve filed this for future reference!
What a great foot! From the blog post title, I thought you were going to write something about the Japanese tradition of binding feet.
Wow! What a completely fantastic result! Looks just amazing, I think I might have to hunt out one of these!! 🙂
What a cool foot! Binding is so pesky!
I noticed this very foot when I was ordering attatchments last week. I chose two others, but the binding foot is most certainly on my list. Thank you for the tips!
This is a very cool tool! And one I should have. Thanks for sharing 🙂