Low shank? High shank?

[Phoenix_Rising]

Wow. I thought I was pretty experienced with this whole sewing thing. Guess I thought wrong. I need to buy a zipper foot and a buttonhole foot for my sewing machine (Brother XR-65) but I can't figure out what I actually need to buy. When the machine was purchased it only came with one foot and I have just made do. Can't do that anymore. The foot it came with is a "snap on" and looks completely different than any pics of zipper feet or buttonhole feet I can find online. Do I need to buy an attachment? And what in the world is this low shank/high shank thing? How in the world do I figure out which my machine is? Help, please???

[frogger]

x59370-051 zipper foot does it look like this?

xa4911-151 button hole foot here

here's a clear foot


or have you tried a brother dealer? you can go to brother-usa.com and find a dealer.

hth!

[sabrinat]

I'm going to guess it's low shank and that you use a snap on foot. I have had 2 brother machines and all my feet are snap ons

[Phoenix_Rising]

Originally Posted by frogger

x59370-051 zipper foot does it look like this?

xa4911-151 button hole foot here

here's a clear foot


or have you tried a brother dealer? you can go to brother-usa.com and find a dealer.

hth!

Thanks, Leslie! The first one is what I am looking for (I'm pretty sure anyway). The butonhole one says that it is to be used with the machine's built-in button hole maker. And ummm, my machine doesn't have one as far as I can tell. So I guess I need to keep looking for that.

Originally Posted by sabrinat

I'm going to guess it's low shank and that you use a snap on foot. I have had 2 brother machines and all my feet are snap ons

Yeah, I was pretty sure that I just needed a snap on foot but I couldn't find any!

[frogger]

on my brother machine, it's the first stitch that it does. okay I looked online and it's the first one for you're machine also. also not sure if you still have your manual but it should have the accessories that you can order for it, If you don't have a manual, you can download one off the brother site.

hth

[JTA Mom]

I have a Brother too and it's totally annoying trying to find parts, until I found this site: Sew4less.com.

It has a machine specific search engine.

A visual to decide if your machine is low/high shank (scroll down)
http://community.livejournal.com/sew_hip/1633779.html

btw, Brothers are low shank, but made so that the feet are snap on, if that makes sense? You can buy low shank parts or snap on feet, they should both fit. hth

Ami