Sewing Curves

When we worked on our wallets, our flap was had curved corners. It was relatively easy to do at David's mom's house because she has a Bernina machine (wayyy out of my price range!) with the ability to keep her needle down and a knee lever to control the foot. It was still slow going because you literally do one stitch and then pick up the foot to turn ever so slightly, do one stitch and pick up the foot, etc until you are around the curve. Her machine also lets you go half speed which means you can sew as slow as you want (and then even slower than that!).

My machine is very low-end but still a very nice machine (I'm very happy with it. It's a Brother.) I do have a hard time going slow on it, especially when I am first starting the stitch but with practice, I'll get faster anyway. Last night, I had to sew six curves for the turtle I'm making (I'm sure there's more curves to come but I haven't gotten that far yet). I was kind of scared but decided since I had already done the wallet flap, this couldn't be much harder than that, even though it would be on my machine.

I did it! They all turned out great (except for where my fabric got stuck but that was my fault and had nothing to do with the curve. Good thing David is handy with a seam-ripper.) I think what I have learned from this is to just go slow and take your time, be sure to raise your foot (the one by t he needle, not the one attached to your leg) frequently, and if you can, to keep your needle in the down position when you stop. I will admit sometimes I did more like three or four stitches before I raised my foot (mostly because the machine was going too fast for what I wanted) and it still turned out okay. Worse case, you seam-rip it and do it again. I constantly have to remind myself that.

I think at this point, this is all the advice I can give you with my limited experience but if you do have questions, I can try to answer them or show in pictures how to do it. It's really not as intimidating as it looks.