Quilting with Rulers: Ruler Foot Issues with Auto-Lift Presser Feet

Hello dear readers and quilting friends, I think I and my kids are recovering from our winter cold, flu, plague, pink eye (yes, pink eye. Thanks kids.) mess. I figure I better post something here on my slightly neglected blog before y'all forget about me.

You know how passionate I am for free motion quilting with rulers. So when I heard that Janome Canada did not recommend the ruler foot be used on the Janome S7, MC12000, and MC15000 I wanted to figure out why. I'm pretty sure I have sold the Janome ruler foot combination to owners of these machines and haven't had anyone come back with problems, so what was going on?

Since I work in a Janome dealership, I had access to the S7 and shot a video with my new iPad mini. The mini made editing my video a lot easier than I have been doing it before, so hopefully I will do more videos as soon as I get a camera mount for it.

Watch the video first, but the main issue is the ease of which the presser foot can be raised because these machines have an automatic/electronic presser foot lifter system. It's still an aspect of the lack of clearance between the top of the thick edge of the ruler foot and the bottom of the needle clamp. As always, with any ruler foot, make sure the foot is down when the needle is down and conversely, don't raise the foot when the needle is down.

With this electric lift, it's very easy to accidentally fail to follow this cardinal rule of ruler foot use. Janome Canada says they will not cover any damage to these machines (S7, 12000, and 15000) if you use the ruler foot on it. (I haven't heard anything from Janome America.) I believe the damage would be that of throwing the machine out of time, but I am not entirely certain. This isn't a huge issue to fix, but we don't want to take the machine to the shop.

I think it's doable to use the ruler foot with these machines but that's a risk you've got to decide to take for yourself. I wouldn't want you to do anything to needlessly risk your machine.

My ruler work blog linky party is still open and we've had some incredible work shared through it, so go visit the participants and if you've got a post to share on ruler work, now's the time to do it!


  1. I thank you for your video. I had figure it out that I should not use my ruler foot on my Bernina 780 and I never did. I think I could easily be distracted and forget to lower the presser foot. So I have decided to use it only on my Pfaff that has not automatic presser foot lift. It is all manually done, so I can manage that. Thanks again.

  2. My Bernina 710 has hover which is height adjustable or you can turn it off altogether. I use the knee lift to raise and lower my foot. I guess I treat my machine as if it were a mechanical machine with benefits but have never had an issue quilting with rulers on my 710 Bernina. It seems to me to be an ideal workspace.

  3. Missed your posts, but glad to hear you all are feeling better.

  4. Nicely done, Amy. Thanks for all the research you've done on the Janome ruler foot for all of us. You are the queen of the ruler foot on a domestic machine. I have a Janome MC11000 SE. It doesn't have an automatic presser foot feature (thank goodness), but it will not sew with the presser foot up. There is a built-in safety feature -- it beeps and puts up the message to lower the foot! I don't have the ruler foot yet, but it's on my wish list. Thanks again.

    1. It may beep if you try to sew with the foot up, but it may still allow you to 'needle-down' with the foot up. So be careful.