Hey Everyone, welcome back to Cool Tool Thursday.

Back in the spring I took a couple of classes taught by Carol Taylor. Carol does a lot of couching in her work and both of the classes I took did involve couching.

Sewing machine have become very stream lined and sleek in their looks with no extra pieces sticking up on top which makes it hard to align the wool or yarn into the couching foot.

Carol’s suggestion was to use a drinking straw to guide the yarn over the machine and down to the couching or braiding foot.

What a great idea and it worked liked a charm.

The thicker milkshake straws work the best as a normal bendy straw doesn’t have a large enough diameter for the yarn to feed through like the milkshake straws do.

Some of my wide diameter straws

Cut off a piece of the straw and tape it to the top of your machine on the foot end with a piece of masking tape.

Straw guide attached to machine

The next step is to thread the yarn through the straw and down into the couching foot.

Yarn running through the straw

The straw guide only works if you are using a couching or braiding foot as the yarn feeds from behind the machine. If you are using an open toed embroidery foot the yarn is usually on your lap and feeds from the front.

Yarn coming from back, through the guide into the couching foot

Now all of you who do couching will be picking up straws from your local restaurants who sell milkshakes. I was lucky and found a whole box of milkshake straws in my mom’s cupboard when I was home last month. Needless to say they are now in my possession.

Happy Quilting!