Improving my foot pedal, Part 1

While I’m in problem-solving gear, I started thinking of ways to improve the foot pedal for my sewing machine. It likes moving around on my tile floor, and it is always getting away from me. I’m always searching for it with my foot.

A month ago, I got this little mat, called a Pedal Stay, which is supposed to hold your foot pedal in one place so it doesn’t run around on you. It probably would work great for someone else, but it ended up being pretty useless for me. For one thing, I think it must be intended for use on carpet. On my tile floor, the mat slid all over the place. Or maybe they think the heel of your foot will hold it in place? Well, it didn’t for me.

For another thing, my foot pedal was too wide. There was a little plastic lip that I cut away so I could wedge the pedal into place, but that just created a new problem. My pedal has a section that must be depressed to regulate the speed of the machine, but because of the ledges on the mat, I was not able to push down on my pedal properly. At that point, I gave up on using this mat. (I saw a different version that doesn’t have the ridges but it has Velcro instead. In retrospect, that would have worked better with my foot pedal, but it still would not have worked well on my tile floor.)

While I was searching my studio the other day, I came across these little rubbery feet called Clear Fabric Grabbers. These self adhesive circles are made to put on the back of rotary rulers so the ruler doesn’t slip when you’re cutting. I’ve probably had these leftovers for ten years or so. I popped a few of these babies on the bottom of my foot pedal and — voilà — problem solved! To think I’ve had them in my studio for years, just waiting for me to put the two things together.

(NOTE ADDED 6/4/14: The rubbery feet didn’t stay in place long. Read Improving my foot pedal, Part 2.)

Since I had the Clear Fabric Grabbers out, I decided to improve my well-loved (ancient), Grabbit magnetic pin cushion by putting a few on the bottom of that, too. Ahhh…even better.