QUILTsocial | Issue 08

Q .c 

UILTsocial 

…eat, sleep, quilt, repeat 

ISSUE 8 

Diagram 2 

Visit www.QUILTsocial.com to 

download a PDF version of this issue. 

essential tips for 

* using decorative stitches 

* reducing bulk in the seams 

* Sashiko embroidery 

* perfect quarter square triangles 

* stenciling your fabric 

3 

sewing machine reviews 

* PLUS * 

Spider Hanging by a Thread 

Autumn Harmony Banner 

Cosmic Fusion Baby Quilt 

Wool Applique Snap Bag 

Selvage Bag 

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UILTsocial 

| issue 8 1

A princess for 

the Queen. Give 

her more than just 

another gift this 

Mother’s Day. 

The HUSQVARNA VIKING ® 

DESIGNER RUBY Royale 

sewing and embroidery 

machine is our heir to the 

throne, a true princess for the 

queen. It makes it easy and 

rewarding to create anything 

your heart desires! 

ExclusivE fEaturEs: 

• Experience more beautiful embroidery 

than ever, even with challenging 

metallic threads thanks to the innovative 

deLuxe Stitch System. 

• Use the first in the industry 

Dimensional Stitches to add appliqué 

fabric. 

• The largest embroidery area in its 

class*, allowing you to stitch spectacular 

designs with just one hooping. 

Find your nearest retailer at www.husqvarnaviking.com 

VIKING® and DESIGNER RUBY ROYALE are trademarks of Singer Sourcing Limited LLC. HUSQVARNA and the 

“H” Crown Device are trademarks of Husqvarna AB. ©2017 Singer Sourcing Limited LLC. All rights reserved. 

UILTsocial .com 

Q 

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*Non-turnable; as compared to leading brands in similar price range.

editor's letter 

Good quilting is in the details, and there's no greater 

feeling of accomplishment when points match or seams 

lay flat when making a quilt! There's an extra bounce in my 

step when this happens! Accuracy takes a little practice, 

and the application of every nugget of information 

discovered through tutorials, lessons, and friendships 

make a world of difference. What an extraordinary age to 

be living in, with an incredible amount of information at our 

fingertips and delivered in less than a second! 

Last fall, I was struggling with my quarter square triangles 

on a baby quilt I was making with mom, which led to my 

request to quilter Elaine Theriault to share with QUILTsocial 

the way to perfect quarter square triangles every time. 

Every tip, tutorial and project we learn from enhances 

our knowledge of quilting, giving us more freedom (and 

should I say power?) to make well-made quilts. 

I hope every issue of QUILTsocial quenches your thirst 

for knowlege about techniques, sewing tools and sewing 

machines. To be armed with these is to be able to do 

some serious good quilting. 

Cheerfully, 

follow me on 

Q 

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UILTsocial 

| issue 8 3

Q 

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UILTsocial 


.com 

PUBLISHER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, ART DIRECTOR 

Carla A. Canonico 

carla@QUILTsocial.com 

PUBLISHER, ADVERTISING SALES 

John De Fusco 

john@QUILTsocial.com 

PHOTOGRAPHERS 

John De Fusco, Carla A. Canonico, Alessia De Fusco 

BLOGGERS/CONTRIBUTORS 

Christine Baker 

FairfieldRoadDesigns.com 

Nancy Devine 

nancywhiskeynancyo.blogspot.com 

Jackie White 

jabotquilt.blogspot.ca 

Jean Boyd 

patternsbyjeanboyd.com 

Liana Kirkey 

liana@thatsewingplace.ca 

Sarah Vanderburgh 

sewjoycreations.com 

GRAPHIC & WEB DESIGN 

Carla A. Canonico 

carla@QUILTsocial.com 

Sandra Armas 

WEB and IT Support 

Alejandro Araujo 

WEBSITE / BLOG : http://QUILTsocial.com 

Like us on Facebook : QUILTsocial 

Follow us on Twitter : @QUILTsocial 

WHERE TO GET YOUR COPY 

QUILTsocial is a quarterly eMagazine published by A Needle 

Pulling Thread. It is available free for personal use online at 

http://QUILTsocial.com. 

A limited number of printed copies of QUILTsocial are available 

for purchase at select quilt shops and specialty stores. Ask for it 

at your local shop. QUILTsocial is not available by subscription. 

QUILT SHOPS 

If you are interested in carrying QUILTsocial in your store, please 

email john@QUILTsocial.com. 

EDITORIAL 

Designers and other contributors who would like to be 

considered for future issues please email carla@QUILTsocial.com 

with a brief description of your work and your proposed project 

for the magazine. 

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Elaine’s Quilting Tech Tips! 

©2017 QUILTsocial. All rights reserved. Issue #8. ISSN 2368-5913. 

No part of this publication may be reproduced without written 

permission from the publisher. 

All designs, patterns, and information in this magazine are for 

private, non-commercial use only, and are copyrighted material 

owned by their respective creators or owners. 

Advertiser Index 

65 A Needle Pulling Thread Magazine 

15 Brother 

86 Business Directory 

57 Coats 

25 Gütermann Creativ 

02 Husqvarna Viking 

35 Northcott 

04 QUILTsocial 

88 UNIQUE Sewing and Quilting 

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issue 8 

c o n t e n t s 

06 

12 

21 

22 

26 

38 

50 

66 

70 

78 

84 

Making a Cosmic Fusion Baby Quilt 

Playing with the Brother NQ3500D's Built-in 

Decorative Stitches 

Hooked on Books 

Spiders Hanging by a Thread Banner 

A Quilter's Review of the PFAFF creative 4.5 

3 Creative Uses for WonderFil's Eleganza Thread 

Reduce Bulk in the Seams of your Quilt Block 

The Epic Features of the HV Designer Epic 

Autumn Harmony a Log Cabin Quilted Sampler 

A Calm Winter, a body pillow wrap 

Quilted Hand Muff 

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UILTsocial 

| issue 8 5

Making a Cosmic Fusion baby quilt! 

Jean Boyd 

Fabrics from the Cosmic Fusion collection by Northcott 

The strips are cut on the lengthwise grain of the fabric. 

The first strip set is sewn together. 

I received this wonderful Cosmic Fusion 

fabric by Northcott! I have fabric from the 

green colorway, but there are also orange 

and purple colorways in this collection. 

You can have a look at all the fabric on the 

Northcott website. 

Watch for Cosmic Fusion! You can find 

out which quilt shops and online retailers 

carry Cosmic Fusion by using the Product 

Finder link at the top of the page on the 

Northcott website. 

I decided to make a modern-style baby 

quilt using 9 – 20” pieces from the 

collection. The quilt will be 38” x 48” when 

finished. 

If you would like to make this project 

with me, here’s how to get started. From 

each 20” pieces, cut 3 or 4 strips in varying 

widths from 2½” to 4” wide. Make sure you 

cut the strips so the longest side is on the 

lengthwise grain of the fabric (parallel to 

the selvedge edge). This will help prevent 

the strips from stretching as you sew them 

together. 

Sew 9 different fabric strips of varying 

widths together to make a strip set. Don’t 

worry if the top and bottom edges are 

uneven – they will be trimmed later. Press 

seams to one side. The strip set will be 

about 20” – 24” wide. 

Sew 9 more strips of varying widths 

together to make another strip set. Make 

sure to sew the fabrics together in a 

different order than in the first set. Sew the 

2 strips sets together, end to end, to make 1 

long strip set. 

Make 3 more long strip sets like this. 

Follow along, I’ll show you how to put 

these strip sets together to make the quilt 

top. You’ll have your modern baby quilt 

made in no time. I’m sure you’ll agree that 

this Northcott Cosmic Fusion fabric is fun 

to work with. 

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UILTsocial 

The seams are pressed to one side. 

Photos by Jean Boyd

Lining up strips of fabric easily 

for a modern baby quilt 

Use the lines on your ruler to help you straighten 

the edge of the strip set. 

Cutting diagram for the strip sets 

A sneak peek at the Modern baby quilt made with Northcott’s Cosmic Fusion fabrics 

Straighten one edge of the strip set. I like to use one or more of the lines 

on my ruler as additional guides to make sure the edge is really straight. 

Just align the line on your ruler with one of the seams before cutting. 

Use the diagram as a cutting guide to cut your strip sets into units. Pay 

careful attention to the orientation of the strips in each strip set. You may 

have to add 1 or 2 more strips if your strip sets aren’t long enough. 

Once the units are all cut out, it’s a good idea to put them on a design wall 

or on the floor, so you can check the overall design. Try to avoid having 2 

identical fabrics next to each other. Sometimes you can just turn a strip, 

end for end, to avoid having this happen. 

Here are my units on the design wall, all ready to sew. 

I love working with this Cosmic Fusion fabric! Northcott fabric is always 

excellent quality and the width is usually a full 44”. 

Here are my units on the design wall, all ready to sew. 

Q 

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UILTsocial 

| issue 8 7

How to sew rickrack to 

your quilt like an expert 

Stitch close to each edge of the rickrack. 

This gives you a good idea about how your 

modern baby quilt will look. 

Stitch down the rickrack over the part of the seam 

that is sewn. Leave the rest of it hanging loose or 

pin to the strip set. 

Before I sewed the units together, I pinned some 

rickrack trim over the seams on the design wall to 

see how it would look. 

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UILTsocial 

Here are my units on the design wall, all 

ready to sew. The colors in this Northcott 

Cosmic Fusion collection blend together 

so well and the strip design looks very 

modern. You can go ahead and sew 

the units together just like this, or you 

might like to try my variation below 

using rickrack trim. The sewing method 

for joining the units will be the same 

whether you add the rickrack trim or not. 

As I was looking at the quilt pieces on 

the design wall, I wondered how it 

would look if I had some kind of accent 

or trim on the main seam lines. I had 

some 5⁄8” rickrack in my cupboard (it had 

been there for a very long time!) and I 

thought maybe I had finally found a use 

for it. Before I started sewing the units 

together, I pinned some rickrack on my 

quilt and decided I really liked it. It would 

go on top of the finished seams, but it 

would take some planning to figure out 

when to add the rickrack. You’ll need 

about 6½” yards of rickrack trim if you’d 

like to try this version. 

This is the partial seam 

Stitch down the rickrack over the part of the seam 

that is sewn. Leave the rest of it hanging loose or 

pin to the strip set.

Cutting diagram for the strip sets 

Sew units 8 and 9 together and then sew rickrack 

over the seam. 

Sew units 1⁄2 to the top of the quilt. 

So here’s how to sew it together! 

Note: If you’re using rickrack trim, press 

the joining seams open. If you’re not 

using the rickrack trim, press seams to 

one side. 

Using the diagram on the left as a 

guide, sew Unit 1 to Unit 2. 

Cut an 8” piece of rickrack and pin it 

on top of the seam. With thread that 

matches the rickrack, stitch close to 

each edge, using a slightly longer 

stitch than normal. I felt it would be 

better to have this double line of 

stitching so the rickrack trim would 

stay flat. Trim excess rickrack. 

Sew Unit 5 to Unit 6. Sew a 31” piece 

of rickrack over the seam, using a 

double stitching line. 

Sew Unit 4 to Units 5⁄6 using a partial 

seam. Start sewing at the top and 

sew about half-way down the strip 

sets. Press the sewn part of the seam 

open. 

Cut a 40” piece of rickrack and sew 

over the completed part of the seam, 

leaving the excess rickrack hanging 

loose. 

Sew Unit 3 to the top of Units 4/5/6. 

Sew a piece of rickrack over this seam. 

Sew Unit 7 to the right hand side. 

Sew rickrack over the seam. 

Sew Units 8 and 9 together. Sew 

rickrack over the seam. 

Sew Units 8/9 to Units 5/6/7. Sew 

rickrack over the seam. 

Finish sewing the partial seam. Finish 

sewing the rickrack over the partial 

seam. Sew Units 1⁄2 to the top of the 

quilt. Sew rickrack over the seam. 

Your modern baby quilt is ready to be quilted! 

Q 

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UILTsocial 

| issue 8 9

Change up the way 

you make your quilt binding 

Here's an interesting way to make 

the binding. 

The finished size of the quilt is 38” x 

48”. It’s sized so that you just need 

one width of fabric 54” long [1.4m]. 

You could also use the leftover 

Cosmic Fusion fabric to make a 

pieced backing. 

Layer backing fabric, batting and 

quilt top, making sure to center 

the quilt top on the backing. 

Baste the layers together. Quilt as 

desired. 

Trim excess backing and batting to 

square-up the quilt top. 

For the binding I decided to use 

the leftover dark blue and green 

fabrics. I like to use a ½” finishedsize 

binding, so I cut strips 3” wide 

x WOF (width of fabric). I cut 

enough strips so they would go 

all around the quilt with about 8” 

extra. 

Here’s how you can make this 

binding too. 

Cut the ends of all binding strips 

on a 45° or 60° angle. 

Sew the 3” binding strips together, 

end to end, to make one strip long 

enough to go all around the quilt. 

Press seams open. 

Fold the strip in half lengthwise 

with wrong sides together. Press. 

Cut all binding strips like this, using a 45 or 60 

degree angle. 

Start sewing on the binding using a scant ½” 

seam allowance. 

Sewing binding on the first corner 

Finishing the binding 

Press under ¼” on one angled end 

of the binding. 

Lay the binding on top of the 

quilt so the folded cut edge is 

approximately at the center of 

one side. Align the cut edge of the 

binding with the edge of the quilt. 

Starting about 10” from the 

corner and using a scant ½” seam 

allowance, start sewing the 

binding. Stop sewing ½” from the 

edge of the quilt and backstitch 

to secure. TIP Use a walking foot or 

even-feed foot. 

Fold binding up and then back 

down on itself to create a mitered 

corner. Sew from the edge of the 

quilt toward the next corner. Stop 

sewing ½” from the corner and back 

stitch to secure. Continue sewing 

the binding on the remaining sides 

in the same way. 

When you come to the last side, 

sew for a few inches and then stop. 

Tuck the unfolded end of the 

binding inside the folded end. 

Adjust the binding so it fits along 

the edge of the quilt. Trim off excess 

binding. Finish sewing binding. 

Fold the binding over to the back 

and hand-stitch in place. At each 

corner, fold the binding to create 

a 45° mitered corner. This can be 

stitched down or not, as desired. 

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UILTsocial

Colorway variations of the 

Modern Baby Quilt 

I have shown you how to make a modernstyle 

baby quilt using the green colorway of 

Northcott’s Cosmic Fusion fabric. 

This collection also comes in purple and orange 

colorways. Here’s how the quilt would look if you 

used the purple colorway and orange colorway. 

Just by using different colors, you get a completely 

different look. I hope you enjoy using this great 

Cosmic Fusion fabric collection by Northcott! 

Jean Boyd 

www.patternsbyjeanboyd.com 

Modern baby quilt using the purple Cosmic Fusion fabric from Northcott 

Modern baby quilt using the orange Cosmic Fusion fabric from Northcott 

Q 

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UILTsocial 

| issue 8 11

Playing with the Brother NQ3500D 

built-in decorative stitches 

Liana Kirkey 

Brother NQ3500D’s 

I’m having a blast playing with the 

Brother NQ3500D – it’s not often I get 

to just sit and play on the machines. 

I’m discovering, though, that 

reviewing a machine is comprised 

of equal parts poking buttons, trial 

and error, and (gasp!) reading the 

machine’s instruction book. While 

developing these articles I found 

most of the tools and buttons very 

intuitive. However, some tools were 

new to me and I had to look them up 

in the book. Brother actually produces 

really good user manuals, so that part 

isn’t a hardship… 

Machines these days boast so many 

built-in stitches, yet I so often hear, “I 

never use them.” Sewing and not using 

your decorative stitches is like cooking 

and never using any seasoning! 

Embellishing is my second-favorite 

sewing pursuit and I feel that small-scale 

samplers are a wonderful way to stashbust 

and experiment with all kinds of 

stitches, techniques, and threads without 

being overwhelming. And with samplers, 

less is not more – the more filled with 

stitching it is, the more beautiful the 

result. The book Stupendous Stitching 

by Carol Ann Waugh is a wonderful 

inspiration for this, and you’ll definitely 

see her influence in the final results of 

the sampler shown here. I’m going to 

turn my creation into a slim case for my 

reading glasses… 

Bust a small bit of your stash 

Here’s a quick list of materials if you’d like 

to follow along and create with me: 

• cotton fabric backed with HeatnBond 

(Non-Woven Craft Weight Fusible 

Interfacing) to use as a base (I used a 

6” x 7” square of a very subtle print to 

show off the stitching, but suit your 

style – everything from solids to wild 

prints can work beautifully!) 

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UILTsocial 

• applique scraps to coordinate, 

backed with HeatnBond (I like their 

Light Weight) 

• an assortment of decorative threads 

and couching yarns 

• a bobbin filled with your regular 

sewing thread 

• flannel or soft cloth for lining (an 

eyeglass-cleaning microfiber would 

be even better), backed with 

HeatnBond 

NQ3500D exploration time 

I showed you the stitch panel under the 

machine’s top cover, here’s the home 

sewing screen where we can access all 

of those built-in stitches. 

On the NQ3500D’s sewing home screen, the blue 

stitch area hosts utility stitches, and the orange 

area is populated with decorative options. 

I decided to start with applique. This way 

I can use some coordinating scraps of 

fabric to set the tone and colorway of my 

panel. I sliced a piece of my fusible webbacked 

applique fabric into a few random 

curves and fused them into place. 

First up is to applique an edge down 

with a satin stitch. I chose and tested 

a zigzag from the first menu (1-10). I 

had to reduce my stitch length down 

to 0.1mm to get the coverage I wanted, 

and I’m not shy to tell you that I held my 

breath during the whole row thinking 

that it would jam with such a tight stitch. 

Nope – it fed beautifully and gave me 

perfect results! I then tried a randomwidth 

satin stitch (7-16) on another edge 

and discovered that the length and 

width settings were fixed – I couldn’t 

change them, but I really liked it as it was. 

The third stitch I tried was a feather stitch 

(6-4) straddling the edge. 

Three different applique finishes: satin stitch, 

random satin, and feather stitch. 

Now here’s where it gets really cool – 

and I get to show you that L/R Shift 

feature I rave about. 

Photos by Liana Kirkey

Because stitch patterns execute in the 

center of a presser foot, aligning the 

applique edge to the obvious center 

guide isn’t practical – here you can see 

how the right stitch of the pattern is 

too far away from the edge instead of 

hugging it as it should (I used the opentoe 

embroidery foot to give you a clear 

view of the needle position). 

Touching the edit/stitch switching key 

from here gives you this screen: 

By default, stitches locate in the center of the 

presser foot, not always the optimal location for 

easy guiding. 

Offsetting it would really make life easier 

– and that’s what the L/R Shift feature 

does: it lets you move a whole pattern 

left or right by 0.25mm increments! 

This is the manual adjustment screen on the 

NQ3500D – among other adjustments, here’s 

where you can shift your stitch left or right. 

I chose three stitches: a blanket stitch 

(10-20), one of the hemstitches (3-05), 

and a blind applique (1-34). I played with 

stitch length, width and that awesome 

L/R Shift to achieve just the look I wanted 

– and that blind stitch is barely visible – so 

perfect! The precision that feature offers 

me for edge work is fantastic! 

For the next little while I’m just going to 

play with stitches and try out the tools in 

the stitch screen and the editing screen. 

These screens offer some neat options; 

so let me give you a quick primer on 

what they contain, starting with the 

stitch screen: 

Traditional and contemporary quilter’s applique 

stitches: the nearly invisible blind applique, blanket 

stitch applique, and the angled blanket stitch 

The stitch screen makes the most basic but useful 

stitch tools conveniently available. 

Most of the icons on this screen are 

self-explanatory; along the bottom row, 

however, we have from left to right: 

• auto-pivot: I love this one! It’s an 

automated substitute for the knee 

lifter. With it highlighted, whenever 

you stop sewing, the needle sinks, 

the foot rises, and you can adjust your 

fabric direction. It’s so helpful when 

navigating curves and corners! I’m 

keeping it turned on for this project! 

• auto-reinforcement: I use this a lot, 

more on this later. 

• auto-thread cutter: another favorite of 

mine that we’ll employ in the next article. 

• save to memory: developed the 

perfect stitch settings or stitch 

combination? Save it to memory to 

use again and again… 

• image: this key shows you an 

enlarged image of your selected 

pattern 

• edit/stitch switching key (this one gets 

you in and out of the editing screen). 

Keeping your most-needed tools at the ready, the 

NQ3500D’s stitch screen is clear and intuitively 

set up. 

Now this screen holds the stitch toys, 

which are well-detailed in the manual: 

• free motion mode: this sets the 

presser foot height for free motion 

work (must lower feed dogs to use 

this correctly) 

• mirror image: horizontally mirror 

image most stitches 

• back to beginning: partway through 

a pattern and want to start over? 

Press this button! 

• single/repeat mode: sew 

continuously or just a single pattern 

using this 

• size selection: choose between 

preset L/S pattern sizes where 

available 

• variable key: this one changes 

depending on the selected stitch; it 

can offer pattern elongation, density, 

or character spacing control 

• step stitch keys: this key uses the 

sideways feed to shift patterns left 

or right 

So now, after a couple of hours of 

playing with all of these goodies, I now 

have a nearly-complete sampler (I’ve left 

some room for next foray). 

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UILTsocial 

| issue 8 13

Nearly done – with just enough space to add in some truly original stitch options. 

Whenever I tested a stitch setting I liked, 

I added it to my panel, aligning the edge 

of the presser foot up to a previous row 

of stitching to keep my spacing even. 

I’ve discovered how much I like the 

open-toe embroidery foot for this – I can 

really see where I’m going! 

The scissors tool is also a real winner in 

my book. Trimming is neat and tidy, and 

it really keeps the thread tails under 

control. My sewing area isn’t nearly the 

mess of threads it usually is! 

Some observations made while playing 

• some menus seem to repeat patterns 

found in other menus 

• some stitches don’t let you adjust 

the stitch length or width, and others 

have preset large and small options. 

• the maximum speed seems to vary 

with the stitch pattern – some seem 

distinctly slower. The stitch quality 

is impeccable, so perhaps that’s 

Brother’s way of optimizing “quality 

control”? 

• I fared better when using the 

foot control on some stitches – 

my steering was certainly more 

consistent when I could control the 

start, stop and speed with my foot 

and keep my hands on my fabric. 

• a light touch on the fabric was all 

that was needed to steer around the 

curves. The feed dogs and presser 

feet are elongated on the NQ series 

for better control, and that’s definitely 

evident in how responsive it is. 

• the extra-large, sideways motion 

stitches are really cool, but trickier to 

steer. I did use one of them, but most 

were too large for this little sampler. 

• combining stitches from the 

decorative stitch menus is so very 

easy just select one stitch, then 

another. Can you find the combined 

patterns in the above picture? 

• metallic thread posed no problem, 

even at full speed, though I did have 

to lower the upper thread tension 

significantly. Of course, I was using 

the supplementary spool guide as 

recommended. 

So… if you’ve been playing along with 

me, you’ll now have an embellished 

panel, too – I hope you’ve left some 

room for a few more stitches, because 

I’m going to show you how to create 

your own stitches in My Custom 

Stitch. I might even have to add some 

couching, because I just love the look 

and texture of it. 

I have had so much fun exploring these 

tools, and really enjoyed sharing them 

with you. If you have indeed been 

playing along with me, I’m sure everyone 

would love to see your creations. Keep 

reading, I look forward to touring 

another exciting facet of the Brother 

NQ3500D with you all! 

Q 


UILTsocial

Get your game on! 

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CM650W 

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Create your own magnetic, quilted tic-tac-toe 

board like the one featured here. 

See how at brother.ca/tic-tac-toe 

Visit brother.ca/findadealer to find your closet 

authorized Brother dealer. 

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INSPIRING CREATIVITY FOR GENERATIONS 

Brother and its logo are trademarks of Brother Industries Ltd., Japan. All specifications are subject to change without notice. © 2016 Brother International Corporation (Canada) Ltd. 11/2016 83516 

15

Brother NQ3500D 

Design 

your own 

decorative stitches 

with 

My Custom Stitch 

We’ll explore something new. Well, kinda 

new: Brother machines have sported 

the My Custom Stitch feature for 

many, many years now, yet it’s such an 

underused tool (or should I say, ‘toy’?). 

I like to consider My Custom Stitch an 

advanced Etch-A-Sketch, and I have a 

sneaking suspicion that I’m dating myself 

by saying that!. With My Custom Stitch, 

you can create your own stitch patterns 

by plotting points on a grid. The section 

devoted to it in the manual is quite small, 

but it really doesn’t need to be larger – it 

contains all the detail you need to begin 

designing your own stitch patterns. 

And among the accessories included 

with the NQ3500D is a set of paper grid 

sheets so you can sketch out your ideas 

with pencil and paper before teaching 

them to the machine. 

I was looking for a specific stitch, and I 

couldn’t find it among the built-ins. One 

was close, but not exactly what I wanted, 

so I hand-drew my idea on one of the 

grids to remind myself of the first one I 

wanted to create. And because I’m funny 

that way, I even dotted the points that I 

want to set… 

My first sketch of a simple design, ready to 

transfer to My Custom Stitch 

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UILTsocial 

It’s playtime 

So, let’s check out this cool feature! If 

you have a Brother sewing machine, 

there’s a good chance that you have 

this hidden gem. Why not polish your 

stitch designing skills by following 

along with me? 

From the now-familiar sewing home 

screen, touch the pencil button along 

the bottom row to open up My Custom 

Stitch. You’ll see this screen, or possibly a 

variation of it if you have a different model: 

This is what the My Custom Stitch screen looks 

like… but don’t let it intimidate you! 

This screen looks more complex than 

it is – but most of it is taken up with 

arrows! So rather than diving into a 

sea of technical explanations, let’s just 

enter the first point. Referencing the 

drawing on paper, I think I want to work 

horizontally rather than vertically – the 

button in the top left takes care of that. 

Next, I’ll use the arrows surrounding the 

set button to move the pencil on the 

grid up 7 points to match my drawing. 

When it’s in the right place, touching 

set places the stitch. 

Still using the arrows, I’ll just keep 

moving the pencil and setting the 

stitches where I want them, continuing 

until I made one full repeat of my 

pattern. The top of the screen keeps 

track of how many stitches I set as well 

as the pencil’s current stitch point and its 

grid coordinate. 

A simple stitch pattern already completed on My 

Custom Stitch 

I only needed to enter six stitch points 

for this pattern (some are top of each 

other, in the middle of the ‘y’) before it 

repeats itself. The Test button displays a 

preview of my creation. 

A preview of the My Custom Stitch stitch 

pattern shown as if continuously stitched. 

My own creations from My Custom Stitch 

And here they’re tested out for real. 

Viewing from top to bottom, the first 

row is as I designed it, and the others 

are the result of making simple width 

and length adjustments. You can see 

that I’m really having fun with My 

Custom Stitch! 

The first of many My Custom Stitch creations 

to come!

I wanted to see what my first creation 

would look like with a heavier stitch, so 

I input the same stitch points again. This 

time, though, I used the triple stitch 

setting on all advancing stitches. You 

can’t see a difference on the editing 

screen except for the stitch count, but in 

my actual sew-out below, you can clearly 

see the weightier stitch version (5th row); 

it really shows off my pretty threads! 

And then I got carried away (who, me?) 

and created a few more. I tried a few of 

my own design, one from the machine 

manual, and a couple from the book 

My Custom Stitch by Barbara Skimin, 

published in 2002. That could be a toughie 

to find, but it’s still a great reference. 

There’s no need to worry about messing 

up the originals; your edited versions are 

saved as copies. You can save up to 15 

custom stitch patterns to the machine’s 

internal memory, or as many as you 

like on a USB stick. And for the tecchies 

who just need to know: stitch patterns 

save as numbered .pmv files, which you 

may rename at your computer. Your 

computer won’t be able to open these 

files, but if you set up a folder for them, 

it’s a great place to store a growing 

collection. Just pop ’em on a USB stick 

when you want to play with them on 

your machine. 

While we’re on the topic of saving 

stitches, of course I saved all my 

creations (okay, the ones I liked) so I 

could use them to finish off the sampler. 

They don’t look like much on screen, but 

they sure stitched out pretty! 

Can you spot ‘my’ stitches in the final 

piece? Some of them are kinda tricky; 

I think I was over-exuberant and didn’t 

leave myself as much room as I thought! 

Stitch panel, topped up with some My Custom 

Stitch creations 

I really had fun playing with My Custom 

Stitch, and I know I’ll be looking at 

anything patterned with new eyes. I 

might even take a second look at some 

of the hand embroidery stitches I’ve 

dismissed in the past because I don’t 

have the patience to hand sew. 

I hope that if you have a Brother 

machine, or plan on getting one, you’ve 

been inspired to check out My Custom 

Stitch and maybe design some stitch 

patterns of your own. It’s amazingly easy, 

and even a tiny bit addictive! 

Getting carried away is easy with My Custom 

Stitch. How many can you create? 

Now, while My Custom Stitch isn’t new, 

though, I think you’ll agree that it’s pretty 

cool – Brother has added something 

new starting with the Q-Series: you can 

now edit existing built-in stitches as well 

as previous creations. So, of course I had 

to try it out. It’s very similar to creating 

your own stitch, without having to start 

from scratch. Again, I was impressed at 

how easy it really was to do. 

Saved patterns don’t look very exciting – a good 

reason to make a stitched “bible” of all your 

stitches. They look so different on fabric! 

Retrieving My Custom Stitch patterns 

from either your machine or the USB 

stick is as easy as selecting other stitches 

on the NQ3500D: from the sewing home 

screen, touch the drawing icon next to 

the pencil, choose the source (machine 

or USB stick) and folder (bPocket is the 

default but I renamed mine just to see if 

the machine would read it – it did), and 

choose your stitch. Touch ‘Set’ and you’re 

ready to sew, with all of the regular stitch 

editing options of the built-in decorative 

stitches. So now it’s time to fill in the 

last few blank spots on the sampler we 

began before. 

Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 17

practical sewing features of the 

Top 10 Brother NQ3500D 

One of these things is not like the other… can you 

tell the differences between the straight stitches? 

Having explored a range of the fun 

features of the NQ3500D it’s a good time 

to knuckle down and investigate the 

core sewing basics. 

Incredibly easy threading 

I’m still marvelling at that now. I’ve 

never experienced anything easier to 

thread than this! Especially the needle – 

you’ve just got to watch the video. Here 

it is, we’ve SLOWED it down for you. 

Watch as real magic happens: 

https://youtu.be/Vrl3MiGrf0E 

Pre-set straight stitches for all 

sewing genres 

A straight-stitch is probably the 

single most important stitch on a 

sewing machine, and it should come 

as no surprise that the NQ3500D 

offers plenty of options. No matter 

your sewing pursuit, you’re sure to 

find a pre-set straight stitch that will 

become your “go-to”. 

You may remember Brother’s NQ3500D 

main sewing screen which included 

several straight stitches. Some may find 

that confusing, but it’s actually pretty 

cool. Take a closer look and see if you 

can spot the differences: 

Stitches 1 to 4 are each thoughtfully 

pre-set with a different combination 

of needle positions (left or center) and 

reinforcing style (traditional backstitch 

or in-place lockstitch). First, note the 

placement of each stitch in its display 

box on screen: a stitch shown on the 

left stitches on the left; stitches pictured 

in the middle stitch in the center. Handy, 

but it gets even better: simply by 

changing the stitch width setting, one 

can access all 15 straight stitch needle 

positions. That’s 7 places on either side 

of center! If that isn’t enough – you can 

adjust them further with the L/R Shift. 

Stitch 5 is a triple straight stitch, perfect 

for seams needing extra-strong 

stitching. 

But wait for it… there’s even more! Take 

a look at stitches 29, 30, and 31 from 

the stitch card, below. See the little “P” 

footnote? These are set up specifically 

for piecing (quilters, this means you!). 

They are shorter stitches, and are 

positioned respectively ¼” from the 

right edge of the standard sewing foot, 

in the center, and ¼” from the left edge 

of the standard sewing foot. Someone 

was really thinking! 

NQ3500D stitch panel 

Convenient automatic seam reinforcing 

and thread trimming 

Now, above, I also mentioned 

reinforcing styles; these correspond to 

the securing buttons near the needle. 

But again, someone really had their 

thinking cap on: use these stitches (or 

any others) with the tools along the 

screen’s bottom row and you have 

some really time-saving conveniences. 

Envision this in your mind as I do this: 

select stitch 101 and activate the Auto 

Reinforcement (the U-turn) and Auto 

Thread Cutter (the scissors) tools on 

screen. Begin stitching. The machine 

takes 3 stitches, backs up 3 stitches, 

then proceeds until you press the 

U-turn button near the needle. Then 

it immediately backs up 3 stitches, 

forwards 3, and trims the thread. I told 

you – it’s “automagic”! These functions 

work on all stitches, and each stitch 

secures itself appropriately to the 

stitch type. Here’s a few to show you 

– beautiful stitch quality, and clean, 

precise reinforcements. Don’t you just 

love it? 

Q 


UILTsocial

The NQ23500D does a lovely job of finishing. 

Shown here: auto-securing and auto-trim results 

Knee Lifter 

I’m a huge fan of the knee lifter. This 

handy tool is inserted into its port on 

the front of the machine, and offers 

hands-free control of the presser foot 

lifter. A nudge of the knee can raise or 

lower the presser foot, allowing you to 

keep your hands on your work for better 

control. It’s often found on industrial 

machines because when properly used, 

it’s a huge production-booster. A little 

bit of practice and its usage becomes 

second nature. 

Pivot function 

The Pivot Function can do much 

the same thing as a knee lifter, only 

automatically. With it activated, every 

time you stop sewing, the needle sinks 

into the fabric and the presser foot rises, 

allowing you to rotate your fabric. So 

handy, especially if you can’t get the 

hang of the knee lifter! And, of course, 

there’s more (there’s always more!)… It 

does something else that I really like: 

when you have the auto secure and the 

auto trim turned on with it, it raises the 

presser foot for you after securing and 

trimming. How cool is that? 

A whopping 13 presser feet included 

All of the basic necessities are included 

with the NQ3500D to get you sewing 

in style. Many of these feet are ‘quickswitch’; 

they snap on and drop off with 

the touch of a lever. Several of them, 

meant for techniques requiring a more 

stable hold, screw securely on to the 

presser foot bar. 

A great collection of presser feet to grow into! 

From top to bottom, left to right: 

zigzag foot (with levelling button), 

monogramming foot, blind hem foot, 

overcasting foot, zipper foot, open toe 

embroidery foot, stitch guide foot, opentoe 

quilting foot, non-stick foot, button 

sew-on foot, embroidery foot, adjustable 

zipper foot, and the buttonhole foot. 

These all store in the slide-on accessory 

tray surrounding the freearm, ready to 

be attached in a flash. 

Hassle-free fabric feeding with the 

AHA® Feature 

No more struggling with varying fabric 

thicknesses… when the Automatic 

Fabric Sensor System is turned on, 

the NQ3500D automatically and 

continuously senses the fabric thickness 

and adjusts the presser foot pressure for 

you. Of course, you can override it, but 

why would you when it works so well? 

Automatic buttonholes 

Slip your button into the back bracket 

of the buttonhole foot and snug the 

holder in place – that’s all it takes to 

measure your button perfectly! Then 

choose your buttonhole and lower the 

sensor lever. Push the start/stop button 

and the machine does the rest. It really 

couldn’t be easier! There are buttonholes 

for all weights of fabric, even a stretch 

buttonhole, and a tracer for bound 

buttonholes. 

Contents of the buttonhole menu 

The button sew-on foot, just finished sewing on 

a button. 

Hidden gems on the buttonhole 

menu 

Also on the buttonhole menu are a 

few related stitches that just beg to be 

mentioned, since I included them in the 

above stitch out: 2 mending stitches, 

a bar tack (I made two of those in 

different sizes), an eyelet, and a buttonsew-on 

program. They’ve really thought 

of everything! 

Built In sewing fonts 

The NQ3500D has 5 sewing fonts built in: 

block, script, double block, Cyrillic, and a 

Japanese font. 

I took a few minutes to play with the 

block font; it was easy to enter and 

quick to stitch, and I’m quite pleased 

with its clarity. I like this, and can see 

its usefulness for smaller labels and the 

like, but I’m glad that this machine also 

embroiders – I’m definitely partial to 

richly embroidered lettering. Still… 

Slip the button in the bracket on the foot, snug it 

in and you’re ready to sew. 

Getting carried away is easy with My Custom 

Stitch. How many can you create? 

Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 19

My bonus “faves” 

As I was stitching out the samples for 

the pictures above, of course I was 

using the very tools I was speaking of. 

But… there were other features I relied 

upon that really deserve their own 

special mention again. 

I wanted to use the NQ3500D at home 

while standing at a high counter. So I 

didn’t bother using the foot control this 

time – I exclusively used the start/stop 

button and the speed control slider. 

While I like the foot control for larger 

projects, the freedom of not needing it 

was great! 

Project time 

I’m going to turn the small panel I 

embellished over the last couple of 

articles into a fancy little case for my 

eyeglasses. If you missed the supply list, 

please go back to the article, Playing 

with the Brother NQ3500D’s built in 

decorative stitches. 

My glasses are only a slim pair of 

magnifiers, so I don’t need a large case. 

Follow along with these steps, using your 

own glasses to measure: 

1. To make my pattern, I wrapped a 

piece of paper around my glasses to 

determine how wide I needed to cut 

my panel, factoring in about a ¼” seam 

allowance. I added some curve to the 

bottom and top for interest, like this: 

2. I layered my stitched panel and 

fusible-backed flannel right sides 

together and cut them out according 

to my pattern, leaving the bottom 

curves uncut for now. 

3. Matching the top curves, I stitched 

(using stitch 1-29 – the right-hand 

piecing stitch) around the top curve 

only. Since I sewed fusible side up, I 

used the non-stick foot. And I was so 

intent on sewing slowly and carefully 

around those tight curves, I forgot 

to change thread colors! At least this 

seam will be on the inside – unseen 

after this. And you won’t tell, will you? 

4. I clipped the curves closely… 

Stitch along the top edge and clip the 

curves closely. 

5. Then I turned it right-side out, 

smoothing the curves with my fingers 

and pressed it, fusing the flannel lining 

to the wrong side of the panel. 

7. I cheated and used the overcasting 

(G) foot with left straight stitch 1-01 

and stitched along the edge as shown, 

using the guide on the foot to stay 

an even distance from the edge. Of 

course, I turned the auto secure and 

auto trim on! 

TIP Using the overcasting foot (G) and the 

left-most straight stitch will give you a lovely 

¼” seam allowance. 

8. Last chance to trim away any pokey 

threads, and then overcast the edges 

with 1-16 – I like this overcast – it’s 

quite pretty. 

So here’s the final little project (I hope 

the picture’s in focus, I took it with my 

glasses off!) 

It’s now turned, and fused with right sides facing out. 

6. Next step was to fold it in half 

lengthwise and now cut the 

bottom curves. 

Stitched and stuffed (with glasses), this 

case is complete! 

It has certainly been a wonderful 

experience getting to play so intensely 

with the Brother NQ3500D; it’s certainly 

a machine with many fantastic, covetworthy 

features. It’s advanced enough to 

satisfy experienced sewists, yet intuitive 

and easy enough to learn and grow into. 

Definitely a winner! Cheers, and until 

next time: happy sewing! 

Liana Kirkey 

liana@thatsewingplace.ca 

My pattern piece on top of my fabric; the ruler is 

for a size reference. 

Q 


UILTsocial 

Match the edges carefully, and then cut the 

bottom curves.

hooked on books 

Celebrate Canada 

Nellie Holmes and Christine Baker 

The newest book from Nellie and Christine features 

two quilts and smaller projects such as an apron, 

wall hanging and tote bag made using Northcott’s 

Oh Canada line of fabric. Full colour, easy to 

understand instructions! 

24 Pages, ISBN 978-0-9735183-3-7 

Upper Canada Quilt Works Publishing 

available at quilt shops or online at 

www.uppercanadaquiltworks.com 

or as a ebook on Craftsy 

Make Precut Quilts 

10 Dazzling Projects to Sew 

Favorite Designers 

Precut projects from favorite designs 

Quilting with precuts is easy, fast, and fun! Feature 

your favorite fabric collection in these 10 precutfriendly 

designs using charm packs, layers cakes, 

and jelly roll strips. The versatile patterns from top 

designers work with a variety of prints and solids, 

and beginner and intermediate quilters will love 

the bright and friendly designs. This value-packed 

booklet features 5 layer-cake patterns and 5 for 

charm squares and precut strips–perfect for anyone 

who wants to jump straight into sewing! 

42 pages, ISBN 978-1-61745-488-2 

Stashbooks 

ctpub.com 

Make Table Runners 

10 Delicious Quilts to Sew 


A runner for every table 

Dress up your table with 10 colorful table runners 

from top designers! Whether you prefer appliqué 

or patchwork, traditional or modern, fancy floral or 

geometric designs, you’re sure to find something 

you’ll love. And with table toppers quick enough to 

make in a weekend, you can switch up your decor 

any time you feel like it. This value-packed booklet 

is sure to become your new go-to for gifts, seasonal 

decoration, and quick, fun projects to use up your 

stash! 

34 pages, ISBN 978-1-61745-486-8 

Stashbooks 

ctpub.com 

Make Baby Quilts 

10 Adorable Projects to Sew 


The cutest baby quilts you'll ever see 

Jump right in and get sewing! With this valuepacked 

booklet of 10 baby quilt patterns from 

top designers, you’ll find a perfect style for every 

baby. Cute and fun appliqué patterns are mixed in 

with bright and cheerful patchwork, with designs 

ranging from traditional to modern. And with clear 

instructions, illustrations, and how-to photos, even 

beginner quilters will be whipping out these quilts 

in no time at all. Never wonder what to make for 

that new baby again! 

42 pages, ISBN 978-1-61745-490-5 

Stashbooks 

ctpub.com 

Intentional Piecing 

Amy Friend 

Let's get fussy about fabric! Fabric choice can make 

or break a quilt design, and quilters are always 

looking for ways to spotlight their favorites. Fabric 

has an uncanny ability to transform a project, 

evoke a mood and deliver a whole, new level of 

satisfaction to today's quilter. Learn to focus on 

precise, mindful work and have fun with fussy 

cutting with Intentional Piecing: From Fussy Cutting 

to Foundation Piecing, by award-winning quilter Amy 

Friend. Amy establishes how to make the fabric the 

start of every quilt in spirited, modern projects you'll 

use every day. 

160 Pages, ISBN 978-1-940655-1-85 

Lucky Spool 

www.thomasallen.ca 

A New Spin on Drunkard's Path 

12 Innovative Projects • Deceptively Simple 

Techniques 

John Kubiniec 

Think you’ve seen all you can make with the 

Drunkard’s Path block? Think again! Open your 

eyes to a new take on curved piecing with quilting 

teacher John Kubiniec. Go beyond the basics with 

12 innovative projects based on a classic pattern. 

Discover how using pre-pieced units like rail fences, 

half-square triangles, and sixteen-patches can 

completely change up the Drunkard’s Path look. 

Take it a step further with creative sashings and 

add-ons to alter the finished layout. The end result 

looks complex but is actually easy to sew! 

82 pages, ISBN 978-1-61745-301-4 

Stashbooks 

ctpub.com 

Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 21

Spiders Hanging 

by a Thread 

It really doesn’t get 

much better than 

this when it comes to 

taking a quilted wall 

hanging right outside 

the box, or in this 

case off the web! This 

sweet spider quilt will 

mesmerize anyone 

when you see that last 

spider hanging on by 

a thread! 

Jackie White 

Q 


UILTsocial 

Photos by Jackie White

Gather all your tools 

and supplies you'll 

need for the quilted 

wall hanging. 

finished measurements 11" x 54" 

materials 

• 5 fat quarters 

• ½ yd black rick rack medium and small 

size 

• HeatnBond Feather Lite Iron-On 

Adhesive 

• Two ½ yard different pieces white/ 

black print fabric for background fabric 

• 1 fat quarter for binding 

• 1 yd batting 

• 1 yd backing 

• 10 fun buttons 

• 12 - 15” embroidery thread to match 

spider webs 

Template used to create spider web 

Instructions 

Making the cobweb 

The first thing we need to do is make 

our cobweb template. You do this by 

measuring 4½" across and a center point 

5" down, which is 2¼” in the middle. Cut 

out of cardboard ¼” up from the bottom 

point, cut off the little point. 

Using your nice template, cut 4 patterns 

out from two different pieces of fabric 

each so you have a total of 8 fabric 

template pieces. 

Alternating the fabric, sew four wedges 

together. Press. Laying each ½” circle on 

the cutting board, trim off any points 

on the flat edge so you get a nice clean 

straight line. 

Sew the 2 halves together matching the 

center point and press. 

Trim all the little end points. One cobweb 

done! Make 4 more cobwebs using your 

different pieces of fabric. 

Cut five 11½” squares from the 

background fabric. 

Cut ½” strips of HeatnBond Feather 

Lite Iron-On Adhesive and then subcut 

into 3½” strips and apply to the outer 

edge of each of the cobwebs following 

manufacturer’s instructions. 

Center the cobweb on each background 

square and press. 

Sew using black thread and create fun 

cobweb patterns in each of the cobweb 

blocks. You can do different quilting 

patterns or the same one for each 

cobweb. I chose the same linear pattern as 

my fabric is quite colorful and busy, so wanted 

something simple to offset the cobwebs. 

Sew the two halves of the cobweb together. 

Apply strips of HeatnBond Iron-On Adhesive to 

border of cobweb. 

Press the fused cobweb to the center of the 

background block. 

Using your fancy template, cut out 4 cobweb 

shapes from 2 different fabric pieces for a total of 8 

cobweb pieces. 

Cut along the edge of cobweb to ensure you have 

a nice clean line. 

Sew a fun pattern to attach the cobweb to your block. 

Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 23

Making spiders for your quilt 

Q 

Sew the spiders onto the 

blocks and sew the blocks 

together. Leave the last block 

with no spider on it. 

Stitch around body of spider 

and stitch bend in spider legs 

to hold shape. 


UILTsocial 

Let's finish things up by creating our 

black spiders! 

Cut five 4½” squares of black fabric. Iron 

on the HeatnBond Feather Lite Iron-On 

Adhesive. 

Set one aside. Free hand draw an oval 

four different sizes. You can do it on 

paper first then cut out and trace onto 

the paper side of the adhesive, or draw 

directly onto that. 

These are going to be your spiders. Cut 

twenty four 3½” pieces of rick rack. These 

are going to be your spider legs. 

Taking one black spider, 6 pieces of rick 

rack and one cobweb block. Lay spider 

out on block and tuck 3 ends of rick rack 

under one side of spider and 3 on the 

other side. Press. 

Repeat for 3 more spiders. Stitch around 

the body of the spider securing the rick 

rack legs in place and attaching them to 

the block. Bend the rick rack as you stitch 

down each leg, creating bent spider legs. 

One block won’t have a spider. Sew the 

blocks together in a vertical row with the 

last or bottom block not having a spider 

on it. 

For the fifth black fabric square, cut out 

the spider shape from that fused piece 

and cut the same shape out of another 

piece of black fabric not fused. Remove 

paper, sandwich together right sides out 

but do not press. Tuck legs into spider 

sandwich and then press creating a 

spider on its own. 

Stitch around outside of spider to secure 

legs. Kink the spider legs to cause a bend 

and stitch the fold in the rick rack to hold 

in place for each leg. Set this spider aside. 

Pin backing and batting to top and get 

ready to quilt. Using black thread, quilt fun 

patterns in each of the spiders. Quilt in 

the background as well. 

I quilted by echoing the shapes of the 

cobweb. Put on the binding as well. 

On each spider add cute button eyes. I 

simply had to add polka dot buttons. 

On the last block stitch down a 10 - 12” 

piece of embroidery thread starting 

somewhere on the last cobweb and 

hanging down off the quilt, then attach 

to the back of the final spider. If you find 

it's too flimsy, take a piece of cardboard 

slightly smaller than your spider and glue 

to the back of the spider then tape the 

piece of embroidery floss to it. 

Sew a sleeve to the back. Hang your 

spider quilted wall hanging and get ready 

for the compliments to roll in! 

Add some fun buttons for eyes on your cute spiders! 

Attach embroidery thread to the cobweb and then 

to the spider so he's hanging off the quilt. 

Jackie White 

jacwhite@amtelecom.net 

jabotquilt.blogspot.ca/ 

twitter.com/jackiewhite121

cr eativ 

100% cotton thread 

A fine, strong, high quality sewing thread 

for hand or machine sewing, no matter 

the stitch type or fabric. 

Gütermann 50 wt. Cotton Quilting thread 

is made of long staple 100% Egyptian 

mercerized cotton; it’s versatile and gives 

seams a natural character. 

• Suitable for hand or machine sewing; the 

perfect thread for your quilting projects 

• Larger cone sizes are excellent for long arm 

quilting machines 

• Available in 100m, 250m, 400m, 800m, 3000m 

and 5000m spool lengths 

• 186 stunning solid and variegated shades 

• Ideal for ornamental stitches, decorative 

seams and embroidery 

• Soft and supple with tear and abrasion 

resistance 

• Colorfast: fade resistant to UV rays and 

multiple washings 

Look for Gütermann threads at your favourite 

fabric, sewing and quilting store! 

25

A Quilter’s Review of the 

PFAFF creative 4.5 Sarah Vanderburgh 

PFAFF creative 4.5 sewing machine 

This machine is a dream come true for 

machine embroiderers. No question it 

has a lot of features to let your creativity 

run wild. But what about for the 

intermediate quilter? How could I benefit 

from the PFAFF creative 4.5? Let's shine 

the light on some of the features that 

make quilting on this machine a joy. 

Set up and Sew 

This machine doesn’t just stitch for you, it 

does all the little things to make quilting 

easier too. Threading the machine is 

easy and threading the needle is even 

easier as the built in needle threader 

actually works well. I haven’t manually 

thread my needle yet which is really 

saying something. When I got my first 

machine many years ago I went to the 

department store for a get to know your 

machine class. I was shown how to use 

the automatic needle threader and did 

it approximately three times at home 

before I forgot how and gave up. 

This time I taught myself with the 

excellent PFAFF creative 4.5 manual! 

The manual is truly your best friend as 

you start to explore this machine. The 

labelled diagrams and explanations 

make it easy to figure out how to do 

things on the machine you expect to 

do – and things you may never have 

thought of! The manual is also available 

in the machine – touch “i” in the bottom 

task bar on the Color Touch Screen and it 

brings up an information menu. 

Bobbin Winding is a Breeze 

There’s a bobbin winder built in to the 

top of the machine – you use it with the 

top thread you have on the vertical spool 

holder just like normal, but you can also 

wind a bobbin with a second spool on 

a horizontal pin and keep your machine 

threaded. This is especially handy when 

you’re using two different color threads. 

Built-in Needle Threader in position Needle threaded by built-in needle threader Winding bobbin with second spool of thread 

Q 


UILTsocial 

Photos by Sarah Vanderburgh

Of course I had to take a photo when 

I got the official sound and digital 

warning that my bobbin was running 

low. And it wasn’t so low that I had 

to panic! This was one of the features I 

have heard quilters praise in quilt shops 

and guild meetings. Again PFAFF has 

come to the rescue of bobbin angst :) 

I have been very impressed with my own 

experiences using it. 

IDT System 

Bobbin winding pop up 

Maybe it’s just me but prepping bobbins 

feels like a chore – something you wish 

would just be done for you so you 

wouldn’t have to think about it. Well 

this machine comes close! The machine 

actually winds the bobbin for you – this 

graphic comes up on the large display 

screen once you lock the bobbin in 

place in the winder. You can adjust how 

fast the machine winds the thread – 

then just press the go button! It stops 

when the bobbin’s full or you can stop it 

by touching the stop button. 

IDT System waiting to be engaged 

Another feature I’ve heard about that 

sets PFAFF machines apart is the 

Integrated Dual Feed System – the IDT 

for short. The manual describes how the 

system works: “As on industrial machines, 

the IDT System feeds the fabric from the top 

and bottom at the same time. The material is 

fed precisely, eliminating puckering on seams. 

. . the system prevents layers from shifting 

while sewing, keeping quilt layers aligned.” 

IDT system engaged for stitching in the ditch 

I really noticed the benefits of the 

IDT system when I was quilting in the 

ditch. I could feel that the machine 

had a stronger grip on my quilt than 

my regular machine and the results are 

visible too. 

Stitches on back of mini quilt 

The stitching on the back of my quilt are 

just as even as on the front. 

The pop-up warning to remedy bobbin angst 

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When I used the IDT System to quilt on 

a larger quilt I noticed that the *bump* 

that tends to show up as you near the 

end of a row of quilting – didn’t! What 

did show would be hard to find and 

was probably a result of me not pinning 

close enough. 

Button Love 

The buttons located front and center 

The more I use this machine the harder 

I fall for the ease these buttons add to 

my quilting. 

The needle down button makes quilting 

so easy. It’s located the farthest to the 

right. Again, it lets me focus on the 

quilting and not operating the machine. 

When it’s engaged (it lights up!) the 

needle goes down and the presser foot 

lifts just a little off of the quilt so I can 

maneuver the quilt. 

The scissors is the thread snips button. 

When touched it cuts both the top and 

bottom threads and brings them to 

the bottom of the quilt. This one has 

changed how I machine blanket stitch as 

I don’t have to think about saving thread 

by moving from one section to another 

before I cut the thread. This feature has 

made my quilting more efficient. 

The presser foot has two buttons 

located in the same convenient place. 

The up one raises the foot the regular 

distance and touched one more time 

it lifts even more to put a quilt through 

the space without worrying about 

getting pins caught on it. The down 

one I engage while quilting because it 

automatically lifts just a little bit – with 

the needle down button engaged too 

– letting me keep both hands on the 

quilt to turn it to change directions. The 

manual calls this a pivot toggle. 

The button beside the presser foot 

buttons is to start/stop embroidery. 

Two buttons I haven’t used yet are the 

immediate tie-off – to the left of the 

snips – and the stitch restart – to the left 

of the needle down. 

Lots of Room for Quilting 

The PFAFF creative 4.5 dwarfs my regular machine. 

That hard case is protecting a jewel of a machine! 

I guess this could have been # 1! There’s 

double the throat space compared to 

my usual machine – notice the machine 

itself is almost twice the size! 

Quilting is more enjoyable without the 

anxiety producing rolling and pushing of 

the quilt through a smaller space. I also 

don’t have sections of stitches that are 

too tight because I was shoving the quilt 

through a small space. 

The creative 4.5 lets you focus on 

progress and not process which also 

makes for a happier time quilting. 

LED lights improve quilting process 

The bright LED lights combine with the 

larger space to make it so easy to see 

and quilt! 

It might seem like I’m focusing on a lot 

of little details, but the result of all the 

little things is that I’m quilting more and 

tending to the machine less. Plus the 

machine does these things really well 

– which results in quilts that are crafted 

beautifully. 

As an intermediate quilter, I’m embracing 

the opportunities the PFAFF creative 4.5 

is giving me to create accurately pieced 

quilts with my personal creative touches. 

Twin size quilt in the larger throat space 

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Using decorative stitches to make a selvage project 

There are so many stitches to explore 

on the PFAFF creative 4.5 that it’s hard 

to know where to start! My default 

*playground* is creating with selvages and 

then it’s pretty much follow my fancy. This 

article goes through my play process with 

the stitches and my selvages. 

I used a fat quarter from my stash with 

the wrong side up as my foundation/ 

stabilizer. I chose selvages that are from 

fat quarters or longer yardage. I have my 

selvages sorted in a couple of different 

ways and chose to use the ones with no 

white strip, dots, or words for this project. 

I wanted to try creating my own selvage 

designs with the stitches! 

Next I picked a stitch - stitch 4.3.19 to be 

exact! You’ll notice that the screen has a 

green *plus sign* that shows where the 

needle will start in the stitch. I also made 

sure I had the correct presser foot ready 

on the machine, in this case foot 2A. 

Stitches created with PFAFF creative 4.5. With so 

many stitches to choose from you may want to 

create selvage fabric with them all day! 

Stitch requires stabilizer. 

Selecting Stitches 

I turned on the machine and opened the 

stitches file. I started selecting different 

ones to see what I liked. The manual also 

has all of them listed out with photos 

and the stitch numbers. 

The Color Touch Screen on the PFAFF 

creative 4.5 gives icon details for every 

stitch selected – from what presser foot 

to use, if you need stabilizer and where 

the needle will start in the stitch. 

The screen showed me that most 

of them require using a stabilizer 

underneath – it’s the white rectangle 

icon above the stitch. I figured that the 

layer of cotton I use as a backing for the 

selvages could count as a stabilizer. 

Next raw selvage edge tucked under preceding 

one’s finished edge 

Stitching Selvages Together 

I started with a selvage with the raw 

edge at the right edge of the stabilizer 

and tucked the raw edge of the next 

selvage underneath the other edge. As 

you can see in the photo, I played with 

quite a few stitches before a plan started 

to formulate on how I could use this 

piece of stitched fabric! 

These selvages are close to the end of my 

piece. After the pink I added one more 

wide selvage to get to my desired length. 

The green plus sign indicates needle start position. 

Stitch start position lined up under needle 

Line up the bound edge of the selvage 

with the middle of the stitch to be sure 

that the stitching will actually go across 

both selvages. 

The machine will guide the stitch – you 

should guide the fabric with your hands 

but the machine may move the fabric 

back and forth to complete the stitch. 

Pink selvage seam stitched 

The PFAFF creative 4.5 makes it easy to 

play and create with stitches. With so 

many to choose from, it’s easy to add a 

personal touch to any project. 

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Perfect presser feet to make 

a zippered case 

It’s easier to keep your creativity flowing with all of 

the possibilities provided by the variety of presser feet 

included with the PFAFF creative 4.5. I’m going to turn 

my stitched selvage piece of fabric into a finished 

project using several of the feet. 

Assemble Project Pieces 

I kept adding selvages to my made fabric until it 

measured least 8” long. Then I cut two pieces 8” long 

x 7” wide. I have a piece of stitched selvage fabric left 

over for another project too. 

Then I found a zipper in my stash that coordinates 

with my selvages and cut it to the same width. 

Now it’s time to click the zipper foot onto the 

creative 4.5. 

Zipper Foot 

The PFAFF zipper foot can be attached to the left or 

the right of the needle to help you sew zippers on 

a variety of projects. Here I have it attached to the 

left. The photo shows my project pivoted out from 

under the needle so I could close the zipper pull 

before continuing down the seam. The extra pivot lift 

provided by the presser foot button came in handy 

here too! 

Presser feet included with PFAFF creative 4.5. 

There’s one for almost every purpose! 

Fabrics and zipper ready for assembly 

Zipper foot attached to the left of the needle 

Stitched case with zipper 

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Fancy Stitch Foot 

The IDT System engages with many of 

the presser feet provided with the PFAFF 

creative 4.5 to ensure even feeding 

of fabrics and smooth stitching. After 

unzipping the zipper about half way I 

used presser foot 1A to sew the side 

seams, then the bottom one closed. 

Blindhem Foot 

Next I switched to the blindhem foot with 

IDT System and used it to overlock the 

seams so they wouldn’t unravel with use. 

It’s the first time I’ve used this foot and 

found it interesting – usually I just keep 

going with a regular foot because it’s 

easier than switching. With the PFAFF 

creative 4.5 it’s easy to change feet – 

you simply push down on the foot to 

release it and push it up to attach it to 

the machine. 

No unwinding a screw and making 

sure it doesn’t roll away! 

I used stitch 1.2.7 Closed Overlock and 

the blindhem foot to overlock the side 

and bottom seams. You could also do 

the same to the two zipper seams, but I 

didn’t. 

Quick to Make Zippered Case 

All that’s left to do is turn the case right 

side out, close the zipper and it’s ready! 

The case is perfect for packing my cutting 

tools safely to take to a quilting workshop 

or retreat. The selection of presser feet 

with the PFAFF creative 4.5 helped me 

create this quick project in no time. 

Presser Foot 1A – Fancy Stitch Foot with IDT System 

Stitch 1.2.7 the Closed Overlock Stitch 

The blindhem foot 

Quick zippered case project 

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Embroidering a quilt label with 

the PFAFF creative 4.5 

The PFAFF creative 4.5 is ultimately an 

embroidery machine. While it does all 

of the little things this quilter wants it 

to do amazingly well, it also led me to 

experiment with embroidery for the 

first time! 

Quick. As a quilter what’s the first 

thing you think of to make with an 

embroidery machine?! 

A *quilt label* of course! 

“Tapering increases or decreases the width 

of the stitch during sewing to create 

symmetrical or asymmetrical tapers.” (from 

the awesome included manual.) 

Embroidery Unit on PFAFF creative 4.5 

Creating stitches with Sewing Programs 

Taper angle choices popup 

You could spend a lot of time exploring 

the options in this machine! 

Stitch conversion popup 

When you select one of your designed 

stitches in embroidery mode it gets 

converted to a single embroidery stitch. 

Now you can move it around the screen 

and duplicate it too. 

A tapered, repeated stitch 

There are several sewing programs in 

the PFAFF creative 4.5 to help you create 

unique stitches. You use these programs 

in the sewing mode. I used the tapering 

program and the single stitch program 

to create the design for the border of my 

quilt label. 

Personal Stitches File 

Once you’ve created stitches you 

like, you can save them into personal 

files to use again. You can add any 

stitch to these files which makes it 

conveniently quick to continue work on 

a project without spending a lot of time 

recreating stitches. 

PFAFF stylus 

I found using the included stylus made 

moving the design around on the Color 

Touch Screen easier than trying to use 

my finger. The stylus came in handy 

when selecting letters too. 

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Adding Words 

Embroidery fonts 

In the embroidery mode you can see 

all of the fonts available on the creative 

4.5. The first three in the left column and 

the first two in the right are available as 

stitches in the sewing mode too. 

You can design a variety of quilt labels 

with all of these different fonts! 

This photo shows the progress of the 

machine on the embroidery. I’m a little 

ahead of myself here but I wanted 

to show you the detailed screen 

information. The large cross shows 

where the needle is in the design. The 

numbers in the highlighted green box 

let you know the position and color of 

thread being used. Yes, you can program 

the thread colors for each section – each 

letter even! The little green half circle 

is the speed control for the embroidery. 

Let’s just say that full speed intimidated 

this quilter! I had to slow down the 

machine a bit so I could watch it in 

action :) 

Okay. So that’s making the design. A 

few more photos to show getting the 

machine and fabric ready! 

Embroidery Unit 

The embroidery unit came in its own box 

which included this travel bag. I store the 

unit in it when not in use – you can see 

how big it is! 

Hoops stored in bottom of bag 

Some of the packing material from the 

box gets transferred into the bag to store 

the hoops as well. This unit comes with 

three sizes of embroidery hoops. 

The embroidery unit bag 

Dynamic Spring Foot 

Design to Stitch Out 

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| issue 8 33

Dynamic Spring Foot 

Select the embroidery stitch out option 

in the task bar menu and the machine 

will tell you to attach the embroidery 

unit. It will also tell you to put on the 

Dynamic Spring Foot. Again, the trusty 

manual is your best friend here! 

Hooping the Fabric 

It’s easy to click open the hoop and put 

in the fabric with stabilizer underneath. 

One more click to clip in the top part of 

the hoop. The Color Touch Screen shows 

to use the 120 x 120 hoop for my design. 

Of course I couldn’t use ordinary white 

fabric to play – I chose pink instead! 

Now it’s time to use the Start Stitch 

button – the one beside the presser feet 

buttons on the front panel. I will divulge 

that it took me longer than necessary to 

figure this out – what a newbie! Remember, 

manual = bff! 

The machine creates the design in 

the order it was created. Threads are 

automatically snipped on the long stitches. 

The design is finished! You can see that 

the threads weren’t snipped between 

the letters so I’ll carefully cut them with 

some small scissors. Then I’ll cut the label 

to my desired size. 

My first embroidered quilt label is a 

success! Not too bad for my first time 

using the PFAFF creative 4.5 embroidery 

machine. I already started planning to 

use different designs to make labels that 

coordinate with my quilts – Halloween, 

Christmas, hearts, tulips! The options are 

limitless, too bad my quilting time isn’t! 

Fabric and stabilizer in hoop 

Design being stitched out 

Hoop attached to embroidery unit 

Design finished 

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35

Add charm to fabric with 

the Basic Shape Creator 

I’m going to share one more of the 

embroidery features in the PFAFF creative 

4.5. The quilter in me thoroughly enjoyed 

playing with the Basic Shape Creator to 

design my own charm square. 

If you’ve been reading along then you’ve 

heard me refer to the manual more 

than once! This machine comes with 

two – one is the owner’s manual and 

the second features beautiful photos of 

the available embroidery stitches with 

stitch numbers and color thread details. 

Using the Basic Shape Creator is 

explained with step by step instructions 

in the owner’s manual. I followed the 

directions once, then changed out the 

stitch and shape to create my own. 

Next select the shape you want to create 

with your stitch. The arrow on the image 

shows which direction the needle will go 

around the shape as it embroiders. 

Select a shape 

See the calculator icon? 

Designed 5” charm square 

Select a stitch 

In embroidery mode, select a stitch to 

design the shape with Basic Shape Creator 

– the button to touch to get into the Shape 

Creator is the one with butterflies in a 

curve in the right side menu. 

calculator popup 

The machine and embroidery stitches manuals 

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The calculator popup lets you touch the 

number of times you want the stitch 

repeated in the shape. Don’t worry if 

you get it wrong the first time – there’s 

a plus and minus sign for you to change 

the number and see the results to make 

sure you like it before you stitch it out. 

Basic shape created 

This is how the shape that I created 

looked on the Color Touch Screen. 

The design needed to be in the space 

between the black square guides. The 

machine will let you know if your design 

won’t fit. 

Now it’s time to stitch it out! 

When the design was finished I cut the 

joining threads between the stitches and 

trimmed the fabric to a 5” charm. 

Then I decided to use the charm and 

make a placemat! 

I used my free Charmed placemat 

pattern and cut stash pieces to the sizes 

I need. Notice I used up the rest of the 

selvage fabric I created earlier this week? 

I love projects that let me try out new 

techniques and use up my stash! 

Designing my own charms with the 

embroidery stitches available with the 

PFAFF creative 4.5 has opened my mind 

to the creative possibilities of combining 

quilting and embroidery. 

I hope you have been inspired to create 

new things! 

Stitching out the design 

Embroidered charm in placemat 



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| issue 8 37

3 great uses for 

TM 

Eleganza thread Christine Baker 

A couple weeks ago WonderFil sent me 

a selection of their Eleganza thread and 

I can’t wait to try it out. According to the 

WonderFil website Eleganza is a 2-ply 

100% long staple Egyptian cotton thread, 

double-gassed and mercerized. 

WonderFil’s website says that the 

process of double gassing involves 

burning off the lint from the thread two 

times, resulting in a much softer and 

cleaner finish.The result is a wonderfully 

smooth and lustrous surface that 

allows the thread to glide beautifully 

through all types of fabrics and 

fibers. The thread’s tight twist creates 

beautifully firm stitches while its surface 

sheen produces a luxurious finish to 

embellishment stitchery. 

The thread is offered in 100 different 

colors ranging from saturated solids 

to subtle tone-on-tone and random 

dyed contrasting variegates. According 

to the website, it’s perfect for hand 

work or embellishment projects, it’s 

especially good for wool applique, hand 

embroidery and sashiko. My interest has 

been piqued!! 

WonderFil Threads – 

Eleganza 

Available in 100 colors 

in the WonderFil color 

line and 90 colors in 

the Sue Spargo color line, Eleganza is a 

perfect match for your next hand work or 

embellishment project. 

The Sue Spargo collection 

When I was at Quilt Market in Houston 

in October I met Sue Spargo in her 

booth. I’ve always loved her heavily 

embroidered wool applique projects and 

patterns and we bought a couple copies 

of her book to bring home with us. 

CREATIVE 

STITCHING BOOK 

by Sue Spargo 

Sue’s book Creative 

Stitching includes 

step by step concise 

written instructions, 

along with clear 

illustrations, for 50 of Sue’s favorite 

stitches. Included are close up, color, 

photographic examples of each of the 

stitches used. The beginning of Creative 

Stitching gives you a detailed look into 

the needles and threads Sue uses, and 

throughout the book are never before 

seen color photographs of Sue’s work. 

‘Creative Stitching’ is spiral bound'. 

I’ve been reading through the book and 

trying out some of her stitches, so I was 

especially excited to see that WonderFil 

has a whole line of Eleganza threads that 

Sue has designed. 

WonderFil Sue 

Spargo Collection 

WonderFil has 

teamed up with 

Sue Spargo, author, 

teacher, embroidery expert and artist, 

to bring you a new line of colors in our 

Eleganza, Razzle, and Dazzle thread 

lines! These colors have been selected by 

Sue Spargo to offer an array of beautiful 

and inspirational choices, including 

variegated colors that are only available 

in her line. 

Wool applique 

I LOVE wool applique and had lots of 

fun a couple years ago using WonderFil’s 

Razzle and Dazzle threads to make 

projects such as this little table runner 

that I made for Valentine’s this year as 

well as the table runner that I made for 

my first blogging week on QUILTsocial 

back in June 2014. The Razzle and Dazzle 

threads looked AMAZING on the wools 

but I did have some trouble with the 

threads fraying as I kept stitching with 

them. A little thread conditioner worked 

wonders to fix that problem, but I have a 

feeling that I’m not going to have issues 

like that with the Eleganza threads. 

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Photos by Christine Baker

Ladybug Parade wool applique banner 

Hand Embroidery 

I did a lot of hand embroidery back 

when I was a kid, but never really got 

back to it until recently. The WonderFil 

threads enticed me to try my hand at 

some basic embroidery stitches, mostly 

on my wool applique pieces. A few years 

ago my husband and I took the train to 

Halifax and since I was going to have 

lots of relaxation time I decided to take 

along some wool and to try my hand at 

learning some new embroidery stitches. 

I pinned a bunch of references on 

Pinterest and brought along some 

pieces of wool and my Razzle and Dazzle 

threads and ended up with quite a few 

different embroidery samples. One of 

the several samples that I liked the most 

was this little piece that I ended up 

making into a little zippered bag. 

Now that I have my new Sue Spargo 

embroidery stitches book I’m going to 

experiment a bit more using my new 

yummy Eleganza threads. 

Sashiko 

Although I’ve often admired Sashiko 

embroideries I’ve never actually tried 

it myself. Sashiko is a form of Japanese 

embroidery which is usually worked on 

indigo fabric with white thread. It can 

range anywhere from a simple gridwork 

to ornate designs depicting scenes 

from nature. Just Google “Sashiko 

images” and you’ll be amazed at the 

different designs that are available. I’m 

going to do a bit more research and 

later this week I’m going to try my hand 

at this lovely technique. 

The Slow Stitching Movement 

Usually for a week of blogging on 

QUILTsocial, I design and complete a 

fairly large project and break it down 

into manageable steps that we can 

complete each day for the week. It’s 

usually a pretty fast paced project, 

but it’s always fun to see the entire 

project through to its completion. 

For the purpose of this article we’re 

going to take it a bit slower! In starting 

a new year, I, for one, am looking for 

some quiet, reflective time. The Slow 

Stitching Movement was launched by 

international quilting personality Mark 

Lipinski to help creative people like us 

to slow down, enjoy the process, and 

create fiber art that we’re really proud 

of. Because Eleganza thread is so suited 

to handwork I feel inspired to take it a 

bit slower and to make a few smaller 

projects that showcase the 3 great uses 

for WonderFil’s Eleganza thread. 

Different examples of Sashiko patterns 

Embroidery stitches made with WonderFil’s 

Razzle and Dazzle threads 

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| issue 8 39

4 ways 

to transfer embroidery designs to fabric 


Transferring designs to fabric 

I talked about 3 great uses for 

WonderFil’s Eleganza thread – Sashiko, 

hand embroidery and wool applique. 

All of these techniques lend themselves 

to quiet hand stitching time which is 

especially nice in a busy lifestyle. But in 

order to do some of these techniques 

you have to be able to follow a pattern 

that is marked on fabric. For quilting, 

stitching and embroidery there are 

MANY, MANY different ways to mark your 

fabric. Here are about 4 ways to transfer 

embroidery designs to fabric. 

Marking quilt tops for machine or 

hand quilting 

When I’m machine quilting I almost 

NEVER mark the quilt top. There are a 

couple of reasons for this: 1. I’m always in 

a hurry and don’t want to take the time 

to do it and 2. Sometimes it’s really hard 

to follow that marked line LOL. But, I do 

know that lots of people like to mark 

their tops before they quilt them so 

when I’m teaching my machine quilting 

class at our local quilt shop I do take a 

bit of time to go over the different types 

of fabric marking products and their 

benefits and drawbacks. Here’s the list of 

products I handout to my class: 

Pounce: This is chalk in a bag. Pounce 

or pat the bag on a stencil, leaving a 

chalk design on the fabric. The chalk 

disappears easily, so mark as you go with 

a pounce. 

Mechanical pencil: Use hard lead 

(0.5mm) and mark lightly so that 

stitching or quilting will cover it. They 

mark very lightly, don’t have to be 

sharpened all the time and they don’t 

smudge. Only mark them as dark as 

you need to see the mark when you’re 

quilting, as darker lines may never 

entirely disappear after washing. These 

are good only on light fabrics. 

A hand embroidered quilt label by Carla Canonico from her QUILTsocial blog 

post on June 26, 2016 

A free hand embroidery pattern from www.french-knots.com 

Colored pencils: There are many quilters’ 

pencils on the market usually in white, 

silver, and yellow, the choice depending 

on the color of the fabric being marked. 

These work just fine with two significant 

drawbacks. They have to be sharpened 

constantly and they break inside when 

tapped or dropped making it impossible 

to keep them sharpened. Clover makes 

a mechanical pencil with yellow or silver 

lead that works like the mechanical 

pencils mentioned above. 

Soapstone marker: If kept sharp, these 

markers will show up on light and dark 

fabrics. These make a nice line and come 

out easily. They’re available in quilt shops 

and need to be sharpened in a hand 

cranked pencil sharpener. They leave a 

pale gray line. 

Soap sliver: Sharpen the edges of 

leftover soap for a marker that washes 

out easily. 

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Chalk pencil: The chalk tends to brush 

away, so it’s best to mark as you go with 

these pencils. 

Wash-out pen, pencil or graphite 

marker: These markers maintain a 

point and are easy to see. Refer to the 

manufacturer’s instructions to remove 

the markings and test them first on the 

fabric scraps to make sure the marks will 

wash out. Note: Humidity may make the 

marks disappear, and applying heat to 

them may make them permanent. 

Chalk roller and chalk wheel: Powdered 

chalk in this wheel makes a simple, fine 

line. These work fine if you’re going to 

quilt the object right away. The chalk is 

easy to see, comes in different colors, 

and brushes right off. 

Hera markers: Use a Hera marker on 

black quilts that have simple quilting 

patterns. You don’t have to wash the 

quilt when finished. They work very well 

if you’re going to quilt immediately. 

Frixion pens: come in a variety of colors 

and leave a nice sharp line. The lines are 

removed by applying friction or heat BUT 

the lines may reappear in extreme cold. 

Marking embroidery lines on fabric 

Oftentimes the best technique to 

transfer a design onto fabric depends on 

the color and thickness or weight of the 

fabric. Many of the marking tools that I 

mentioned above can be used with the 

following techniques. 

Tracing 

To transfer a design on paper to a light 

weight, and light-colored fabric you can 

place the design under the fabric and 

using your preferred marking tool copy 

the design by tracing it directly onto the 

fabric. If you have problems seeing the 

design through the fabric you can use 

a light box or tape the paper and fabric 

onto a sunny window. Here’s a little video 

that I found on YouTube that explains 

how to do this. If I decide to use a white 

fabric to do some sashiko embroidery 

with my Eleganza threads, I’ll probably 

use this method to trace my design. 

Watch this video to learn how to use a 

light box or window to transfer a design 

to cloth. 

Tracing Paper 

To use tracing paper or 

transfer paper, you place a 

piece of the paper, colorside 

down on your fabric 

and place the pattern on 

top of the paper. Transfer 

the design to the fabric 

by tracing the pattern 

using a stylus or empty 

ball-point pen. Many 

times the papers come 

in yellow to use with dark 

fabrics and blue to use on light-colored 

fabrics. This technique can be used 

for any fabrics that are too thick to see 

through such as wool or denim. Tracing 

Paper “Chacopy” – 5 Sheets For use with 

tracer pen (#7843500) to copy work onto 

craft & sewing projects. Includes 5 pages 

in blue, green, red, white and yellow. 

Reindeer Games – 

Hot Iron transfers 

Iron-on Designs 

Paperbacked iron-on 

transfer designs are 

available in a variety 

of colors and styles. 

Be sure to follow 

the manufacturers 

directions before 

using. Keep in mind 

that heat transfer 

methods usually 

create a permanent image that must be 

completely covered by stitching to be 

invisible. This type of product has been 

available for YEARS!! I’m pretty sure that 

the embroidered pillowcases that my 

grandmother made were done using this 

type of transfer product. If I can find some 

at my local craft store it would be fun to 

do a couple using my Eleganza threads. 

Blue Birds 4” – The 

Stencil Company 

Can be used for 

embroidery or quilting. 

Q 

.com 

Stencils 

Stencils are great 

for repeat patterns 

and for mixing and 

matching for a 

unique style. You can 

also use just parts 

of a stencil to create 

a unique design. 

Tracing stencils 

works best on 

medium-weight fabrics such as cotton, 

lightweight denim, silk, linen, rayon and 

various synthetic blends. To use a stencil, 

position it on the right side of fabric 

and secure in place using tape. Use 

your preferred marking tool to trace the 

design following the cut-out areas of the 

stencil. If the fabric has any stretch to it, 

you may find it easier to make small dots 

with the along the cutout lines, rather 

than drawing a solid line. 

There are also many other techniques that 

have been developed using computer 

printers, special papers and other 

interesting tools. There’s always something 

new being developed so the next time 

you’re in your local quilt or craft shop ask 

them what’s new! Many times when I’m 

doing hand embroidery I just make the 

pattern up as I go, but for my Sashiko 

project in a couple days I’m definitely 

going to be using one of these 4 ways to 

transfer embroidery designs to fabric. 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 41

Using Eleganza thread for Sashiko embroidery 


We talked about 4 ways to transfer 

embroidery designs to fabric. When I’m 

doing punchneedle embroidery I often 

just place my design under the fabric 

and trace it using a fine marker since the 

weaver’s cloth that I use is fairly easy to 

see through. I’m going to use Eleganza 

thread for Sashiko embroidery on a 

darker fabric, so I’ll have to use one a 

different technique such as one of the 

four that we discussed before. 

What is Sashiko? 

Sashiko is a traditional form of 

embroidery from Japan. Most of the 

samples in existence today are from 

the late 19th century but some records 

show that similar techniques were used 

for garments in the 17th century. 

This form of embroidery, which is also 

popular in quilting, uses straight or 

curved geometric designs stitched 

in a repeating pattern. The Japanese 

word sashiko means little stabs and 

refers to the small stitches used in this 

form of needlework. 

Originally Sashiko provided the practical 

purpose of strengthening and giving 

warmth to homespun fabrics in clothes 

worn by the lower social class citizens 

of Japan. The simple running stitch was 

used to conserve and repair garments 

at a time when cloth was not widely 

available to farmers and fishermen. The 

skill was passed down from generation 

to generation and was learned at a 

young age. Later on, the skill would 

also be used to judge a young woman’s 

suitability for marriage. 

Nowadays Sashiko is used to embellish 

garments and quilts and the designs can 

range anywhere from simple grids, to 

ornate nature scenes. 

Getting Started Stitching Sashiko – 

YouTube 

Here are various ways to start stitching 

using the Sashiko style. Options are 

discussed as well as the tools required. 

Sashiko: Traditional Japanese Sashiko Design 

& Instruction 

Practising my Sashiko 

I decided to practise my Sashiko first 

using a fairly simple grid design. Instead 

of tracing this design from paper, I just 

used my rotary cutting ruler and my 

Frixion pen to draw diagonal lines across 

my fabric. 

I had some of the Northcott ColorWorks 

leftover fabrics, so I picked one of the 

turquoise fabrics and cut a rectangle 

approximately 8” x 10”. I drew one line on 

an angle across the fabric and then used 

my ruler to draw parallel lines 1½” apart. I 

then drew one line at a right angle to these 

and other lines parallel to it 1½” apart. 

Picking the Eleganza thread 

One of the WonderFil Eleganza threads 

was a pale gray, so I picked it and 

threaded my needle with a section 

about 20” long. I didn’t have an actual 

Sashiko needle, so I selected one that 

was fairly long with a large eye so that I 

could easily thread it. After tying a knot 

in the one end I brought my needle up 

from the back of the fabric and started 

to stack some stitches on the needle. 

Stacking the stitches on the needle 

As mentioned in the video above, 

the Sashiko stitches are supposed to 

be consistent in size and the space 

between the stitches is supposed to be 

slightly smaller than the stitch itself. No 

two stitches are to cross or meet. When 

I pulled my thread through, my stitches 

looked okay, but I can tell that I need a 

bit more practice! 

A Frixion pen works well for marking the stitching lines 

Closeup of the Sashiko stitches 

Q 


UILTsocial

Sashiko is meant to be stitched in 

continuous lines acoss the fabric so you 

don’t have to knot off at the back of the 

fabric very often. When I got to the end 

of my first line, I turned and continued 

stitching on one of the lines that met it at 

the end. I’ll continue stitching in this manner 

until all of the lines have been done. 

The Sashiko stitches are worked in continuous lines 

The Eleganza thread is lovely to stitch 

with! It pulls through the fabric nicely, 

doesn’t fray or get into knots. Once I got 

the hang of the Sashiko stitching I found 

it to be nice and relaxing and could see 

how this type of embroidery would be 

great for a novice stitcher. It works up 

quite quickly and is easy to do. It also has 

a modern look to it. I think a quilt made 

with Sashiko panels would be lovely!! 

Making a more complex Sashiko design 

After a bit of practice, I wanted to try my 

hand at a design that was a bit more 

complex. As I said before, if you google 

“Sashiko” designs or patterns you’ll see 

hundreds of pattern ideas that you can 

download or buy. You can print them 

on your printer and then use one of the 

methods I talked about in the previous 

article to mark them onto your fabric. I 

have a bunch of quilting templates that I 

use for machine quilting on my Gammill, 

so I picked one of them and used it 

to trace stitching lines onto a second 

rectangle of the solid fabric. 

I used the same color of Eleganza thread 

to stitch the lines on this sample. Once 

all of my stitching was finished, I just 

used my iron to apply heat to the fabric 

and the marking lines disappeared. 

A machine quilting arc template was used to 

draw the stitching lines on the fabric 

Making a snap bag using Sashiko 

I’m going to use the Eleganza threads to do some wool 

applique and embroidery and then we’re going to use 

both of these samples to make really cute little snap 

bags. I’ve really enjoyed using WonderFil’s Eleganza 

thread for Sashiko embroidery and I plan on doing more 

Sashiko in the future – I hope you enjoyed it too! 

Closeup of the Sashiko panel 

Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 43

Using 

TM 

Eleganza thread 

to enhance wool applique Christine Baker 

Felted wool 

embroidered circle 

ornaments by 

fairfieldroaddesigns 

Wool applique 

I absolutely LOVE doing wool applique. 

I’ve designed and made many, many 

projects with wool many of which I have 

published as patterns or have been 

featured in magazines. I dyed my own 

wool and I made wool kits and items to 

sell in my Etsy shop. The only problem 

with wool is that it can be expensive 

to buy, so one of my favorite things 

to do is to applique wool onto cotton 

backgrounds as this makes the wool 

project a bit more economical. 

Usually I do my wool applique with hand 

dyed embroidery floss, but I have used 

WonderFil threads before and found 

them to be just lovely for wool applique 

and embroidery. Check out these wool 

applique ornaments that I made using 

Razzle and Dazzle threads from WonderFil. 

Picking a wool applique motif 

Some of the Eleganza threads that 

WonderFil sent me were in cool colors 

that reminded me of winter. The teals, 

purple, blue and gray made me think of 

snowflakes, so I dug through my wools 

and found some pieces that I thought 

would work well with the threads. I 

used my Accuquilt Studio cutter to cut a 

snowflake shape out of teal and a large 

circle out of a blue/purple plaid. 

I cut a rectangle of cream colored wool 

that was 10” x 20” and then folded it in 

half to make a 10” square. I used 505 

Spray to stick my shapes to this wool 

square. I use this spray all the time when 

I’m doing wool applique as it holds the 

shapes in place very well and doesn’t 

gum up your needle as you sew. For 

more information about using 505 Spray 

check out my blog post where I make 

felted wool table runners. 

I have a large button collection, so I 

found 12 purple buttons ranging in size 

from ½” to 1” and arranged them in a 

circle around the applique shapes. 

I then used my marker to mark an “x” 

where each of the buttons was placed 

so that I could remember where to sew 

them when all of my stitching was done. 

Using an erasable marker, mark an x for each 

button placement. 

I picked two of the Sue Spargo Eleganza 

threads to use for my project. The colors 

in these threads are just beautiful!! 

Eleganza Hints & Tips 

WonderFil’s website has so much great 

information! For all of their threads there 

are Hints & Tips charts available such as 

this one for their Eleganza thread: 

This photo shows how the wool applique shapes 

and buttons are arranged on the wool background 

The Sue Spargo Eleganza thread looks like it will 

be beautiful with the buttons and wool 

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UILTsocial

Embroidery stitches 

I got to stitching by first securing my 

snowflake with a running stitch down 

the middle of all of the parts. Next I used 

a blanket stitch to secure the circle to 

the wool background. 

I sewed all of the buttons to the 

background using the marks that I had 

made as a placement guide. 

Next came my embellishments using 

french knots in between each button and 

the circle and some lazy daisy stitches on 

the opposite side of each button. 

Now that the wool applique and 

embroidery is finished, this piece and 

the Sashiko sample are ready to sew into 

snap bags. 

Keep reading as I show a fun technique 

involving lengths of metal tape measure 

to make a bag that snaps closed. For 

now though, I’ve really enjoyed using 

WonderFil’s Eleganza thread for wool 

applique and I can’t wait to stitch up a 

couple of the Sue Spargo patterns that 

I purchased at quilt market – the other 

Eleganza threads look like they’ll be 

perfect for them! 

Sue Spargo patterns to use with the rest of the Eleganza Thread 

Stitching diagrams 

Closeup of the embroidery stitches 

Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 45

2 easy ways 

to make an embroidered snap bag 

The finished shashiko snap bag 

We talked about using WonderFil’s Eleganza thread 

for wool applique. I found the Eleganza threads to be 

lovely to work with and the colors of the Sue Spargo 

threads were amazing!! We used the Eleganza thread 

for Sashiko embroidery. So now that we have these two 

embroidery samples finished, now I’m going to show 

you 2 easy ways to make an embroidered snap bag. 

What is a snap bag you ask? 

I first saw the snap bag technique at one of our guild 

meetings where a fellow guild member was showing 

how to use an old metal tape measure to make a 

bag with a rigid opening that would “snap” back into 

position when closed. These bags are great for gifts, 

craft shows and for storing anything from rotary 

cutters to make-up! 

Adding the borders 

The first step for the Sashiko bag is to sew borders 

onto the Sashiko panel. I trimmed the panel to 8” x 10”. 

Next I picked the fabrics that I wanted to use for the 

borders, back and lining of the bag. Since the panel 

was made with one of Northcott’s ColorWorks solids, I 

auditioned a few of the ColorWorks Concepts fabrics 

to use for the borders. 

I cut two side borders that were each 2” x 8” and 

sewed them to the two sides of the panel. Next I cut 

two borders that were 3” x 13” and sewed them to the 

top and bottom of the panel. I cut one piece on fabric 

for the back of the bag that measured 11” x 13” and 

sewed it to the bottom border. 

Auditioning border fabrics 

The borders and back of the bag are sewn onto the sashiko panel 

Q 


UILTsocial

Making a snap bag 

I made the following video to show the 

basic steps of making a snap bag. Please 

watch the video before you follow along 

with the rest of the steps. 

I cut a piece of batting 13” x 21½” and 

layered it with the outside of the bag. 

As I mentioned in the video if you are 

making small bags you don’t need to 

do any quilting to secure the layers, but 

since the bags we are making are going 

to be quite a bit bigger, I used one of my 

WonderFil Konfetti threads to do a bit 

of topstitching around the Sashiko panel 

and across the back of the bag. 

Quilting through the outside of the bag and 

the batting 

Then I cut the lining of the bag from the 

white ColorWorks fabric 13” x 25” and 

centered the outside of the bag on the 

lining with wrong sides together. As 

shown in the video, I folded and pressed 

the excess fabric from the ends of the 

lining over the ends of the bag front. 

The edge of the lining fabric is double folded over 

the edge of the outside fabric 

As I showed in the video the two edges 

of the folded lining is top-stitched to 

make the channel for the tape measure 

to slide into. I bought a dollar store metal 

tape measure and cut two lengths that 

were each 12¼” long and rounded the 

edges as shown in the video. Always use 

OLD SCISSORS to cut the tape measure 

– NOT your good quilting scissors! If you 

are concerned with the sharpness of the 

ends of the tape measure, wrap each 

end with some duct tape to protect your 

fabric. When you cut your tape measure, 

make sure that you reattach the metal 

end using some scotch tape to make 

sure that the rest of your tape measure 

doesn’t retract back into the case – never 

to be seen again!! 

Make sure to tape the end of the tape measure 

back on to prevent the tape from going all the 

way into the case 

Following the directions in the video, 

the bag is folded in half with right sides 

together and stitched about ¼” from 

the edge. I trimmed the edge and then 

zigzagged the raw edge to make the 

seam neat. The next step was to insert 

the tape measure lengths into the 

two channels with the unmarked side 

towards the outside of the bag. 

The tape measure section is inserted into the 

channel with the unmarked side towards the 

outside of the bag 

Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 47

A seam is sewn across the point of the bag bottom 

The point is trimmed off and then the raw edge is 

zig-zagged 

Cut the lining fabric 3½” longer than the outside 

of the bag 

Q 


UILTsocial 

The finished wool applique snap bag 



The second side of the bag is stitched 

closed, trimmed and zigzagged like the 

first side. 

If you want your bag to have a squared 

bottom, you line up the centre line of 

the bottom with one of the sides of 

the bag and then sew a line across that 

point. You then sew a second line across 

the other bottom corner. 

If the bag is tiny, you can just leave the 

excess triangle of fabric on the inside 

of the bag. Since my bag is fairly big, I 

decided to trim the excess fabric and 

zigzag the raw edge like I did for the 

sides of the bag. 

The bag is turned right side out and 

voila!! The cutest Sashiko bag ever!! You 

can see that I sewed a fabric label into 

the side of my bag when I sewed the side 

seam. I ordered these great labels from a 

website called It’s Mine Labels for Life. 

They have a bunch of different sizes and 

designs and you just enter all of your 

info online, proof the finished image and 

then order them. Before you know it your 

labels arrive and you can start sewing 

them into your handmade creations! 

No batting needed 

For the wool applique bag I decided that 

I really didn’t need to add any batting 

as the wool background gave the bag 

body enough substance. Since my wool 

background was 10” x 20” I cut my lining 

10” x 23½”. My tape measure was about 

¾” wide so if you have a wider tape 

measure, you may need to add more 

than 3½” to the length of your lining. 

From there I followed the exact same 

steps as with the Sashiko bag. And here’s 

the finished wool applique snap bag 

– I just LOVE it!!

Stitcher, 

Quilter, 

Embroiderer, 

or Crafter. 

Because we’ve 

got you covered. 

We offer 25 different 

novelty thread lines 

ranging from 100wt 

to 3wt in cotton, rayon, 

polyester, and metallic. 

50 wt 

40 wt 

12 wt 

8 wt 

80 wt 

Find a store near you 

TM 

www.wonderfil.ca/locations 

49

Reduce bulk in the seams of your quilt blocks 

Elaine Theriault 

No bounce! 

I had forgotten to mention this. Let’s 

face it, the Designer EPIC is a large 

sewing machine and it’s heavy. It 

weighs 35 lbs. While I do have a very 

solid sewing table, I don’t have an insert 

for the Designer EPIC so I had to place 

it on my folding banquet tables and I 

was afraid that the bouncing would be 

a challenge for sewing. 

Husqvarna Viking 

Designer EPIC 

sewing machine 

As we explore more exciting features of 

the Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC, I'll be 

happy to share some useful sewing tips 

like how to reduce bulk in the seams of 

your quilt blocks. 

I’m going to spend some time on a 

couple of cool features that I discovered 

by spending some serious time with the 

Designer EPIC. 

I have to mentioned how wide the bed 

of this sewing machine is! It’s a full 121⁄4” 

from the needle to the end of the work 

space. The reason for this large size is 

to accommodate a larger hoop when 

you’re doing machine embroidery. Since 

this is also a sewing machine, this extra 

space will be extremely beneficial when 

machine quilting as there’s a lot of room 

to handle a larger project. 

But where I found that extra space 

extremely useful was in ordinary sewing. 

I usually sew with an ender and leader 

project (small bits that get sewn in 

between my main project so I can chain 

piece without breaking the thread). 

There was loads of room on the bed of 

the Designer EPIC to place my bits so 

they didn’t fall on the floor or I had to 

keep them in front of the machine on 

the table. I LOVE this as it made it very 

handy to have those pieces handy. 

Notice how much extra space I still had. 

Keeping those bits in no way cut down 

on my sewing space. 

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UILTsocial 

A very large throat space allowed me to keep 

small project bits handy. 

Even when I placed larger blocks 

(waiting to be sewn) on the bed of the 

Designer EPIC, I still had a lot of space 

and still not hindering my sewing area. 

Room for larger blocks on the work space 

At some point, over the last couple of 

weeks, I was sewing on my own sewing 

machine and immediately noticed how 

cramped the sewing area was on my 

machine. There was definitely no room 

to keep those bits handy! 

I noticed right from the beginning that 

there wasn’t the amount of vibrations 

that I would have anticipated. Now if I 

were sewing at a very high rate, then 

I would get more bouncing, but who 

sews flat out anyway? You’re just asking 

for inaccuracies when you do that. 

Then as I was browsing through some 

literature on the Designer EPIC, I came 

across an explanation. The sewing 

machine was designed to lessen the 

vibrations! How cool is that! 

Very little bouncing, even on a folding table 

There are times when I think the 

engineers for the Designer EPIC were 

reading my mind about what I like 

and dislike about a sewing machine. 

What little details like this show me is 

that someone with a very thorough 

knowledge of sewing has had input to 

how the Designer EPIC was put together. 

That’s very important to me as a quilter! 

Photos by Elaine Theriault

Brilliantly designed screwdriver 

The best screwdriver – EVER! 

Speaking of thoughtful designs, this next 

tool is fabulous and again, extremely 

well thought out. We’ve all been in 

this position – you need to change 

the needle or you need to remove the 

presser foot ankle and those little screws 

are so small and so far under the head 

of the sewing machine that you just 

can’t get a good grasp on them. Right? 

Easy to get to the screw to change the needle 

Easy to get to the screw to remove the presser 

foot ankle 

Well problem solved. Have a look at this 

screwdriver – it’s just the best and I need 

about three of them! 

What happens with a normal screwdriver 

is that it’s hard to keep the tip in the 

slot of the screw and it slides all over 

the place. Not so with this brilliantly 

designed screwdriver. There’s a opening 

that fits over the head of the screw so 

that it won’t slip. And it’s stubby so you 

can get a good grasp on it. It doesn’t get 

any better than this. 

Perfecting those scant ¼” seams 

Let’s face it – it would be nice to sit 

down at the sewing machine and get 

that perfect SCANT ¼” seam allowance 

every time. It just doesn’t happen, no 

matter how good you are! But I’ve got 

some tips on how you can improve 

your chances of getting that perfect 

scant ¼” seam allowance. 

I’ve said this many times before, and I’ll 

say it again, the Quilter’s 1⁄4” Piecing Foot 

P is just fabulous. I use it all the time, on 

all my sewing machines and I get the 

same seam allowance no matter what 

I’m sewing or which machine I’m sewing 

on. It’s a fabulous time saver, takes the 

thought process out of getting started 

and well worth buying one for each of 

my sewing machines. 

Let’s get started with some advice. Below 

it looks like I’m just going to be seaming 

two regular pieces of fabric together. 

When I flip over the two pieces, you can 

see there’s a half square triangle on the 

reverse side of that seam and that extra 

thickness at the beginning of the seam 

can cause some issues. 

A half square triangle on the reverse side of that 

seam and that extra thickness at the beginning 

of the seam can cause some issues 

The Designer EPIC does have several 

options including the Needle Up/ 

Down feature which helps to solve 

the problems when you’re sewing 

something like this. Two things can 

happen – if you don’t have the Needle 

Up/Down feature, then you’ll have to lift 

the presser foot up manually to allow 

space for that extra thickness to fit under 

the presser foot. If you don’t, the pieces 

are going to be pushed and shoved 

and you won’t have a nice match at the 

beginning of the seam. Other times, 

there’s a lot of bunching at the top and 

the piece won’t press flat. 

The Needle Up/Down feature raises the 

presser foot ever so slightly when I stop. I 

can then put this thicker seam (or any seam) 

right up to the needle. The presser foot 

doesn’t have a chance to push the fabric. 

Getting ready to sew what looks like a straight 

forward seam 

Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 51

Now even with this feature, I still have 

to be careful. I start the seam SLOWLY 

to ensure the sewing machine starts 

to stitch properly and I sometimes will 

assist it with my quilter’s awl or stiletto 

by giving it a bit of a push. 

Starting the bulky seam with the assistance of a 

quilter’s awl 

Once I get over that bulky seam and 

have stitched about one inch, then I 

match up my next intersection. There’s 

plenty of room in front of the needle on 

the Designer EPIC to line up that seam 

intersection. I use my finger to feel that 

the seams are nested together and once 

they’re aligned to my satisfaction, I use my 

quilter’s awl to keep them from shifting. 

Lining up the next intersection and holding it in 

place with the quilter’s awl 

I know that many people feel the need 

to pin these intersections, however if 

you’re using ONE pin at each intersection, 

those pins will shift and cause the seams 

to not match. If you think about it, we’ve 

been taught to not stitch over pins 

which is a good thing. So the moment 

you take that pin out (close to the needle, 

but not under it), guess what happens? 

Yep – your fabric shifts and all that care of 

pinning was for nothing! 

When I use the quilter’s awl, I keep control 

of the intersection right up to the needle 

(I’ve only broken one needle in 20 years 

of sewing with the quilter’s awl) and I get 

pretty good matches on my intersections. 

Keeping that intersection “pinned” until it’s stitched 

Not only is it a good practice to pin 

those intersections with the quilter’s 

awl, but look what can happen with 

the seam allowances. See how the 

seam allowance of the diagonal seam is 

caught on the edge of the presser foot 

in the picture below? If we allow that to 

happen, you won’t be able to get a nice 

pressed end of that seam. That in turn 

can cause issues with matching of the 

seams on the next intersection. 

Seam allowance is caught on the presser foot and 

will turn over unless tamed with the quilter’s awl. 

Once I get near the end of the seam, I 

match the end as well and keep it in 

check using the quilter’s awl. I like the 

amount of room in front of the needle 

on the Designer EPIC. There’s plenty of 

room to match up seams. If my seam 

happened to be longer than the space 

in front of the needle, I would match the 

seam up (more or less) and hold it with 

my hand until the intersection comes in 

contact with the sewing machine. Then 

I would “pin” it with the quilter’s awl and 

finish the seam as shown below. 

Matching and “pinning” the end of the seam 

Here’s another important aspect of that 

seam. You want a consistent scant ¼” seam 

allowance for the entire length of the seam, 

including the start and the finish. 

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UILTsocial

The width of the seam allowance at the end of 

the seam is consistent with the width of the seam 

allowance in the middle 

Check out the sample below. See what 

happened at the end? It’s not a scant 

¼” seam allowance and this can cause 

some major inaccuracy issues, especially 

if it happens a lot. 

Yes – there’s a lot of stopping and 

starting when you’re piecing. I’d rather 

be stopping and starting to position 

fabric and line up seams, than sew like 

crazy and then have to rip out. 

None of the seams in the pictures 

below were pinned or measured in 

anyway and you can see how beautiful 

the intersections are. I know where my 

scant ¼” seam allowance is by using my 

Quilter’s ¼” Piecing Foot P, I pin on the fly, 

using the quilter’s awl and I take control 

of my seams and match things up as I go. 

This process saves a lot of time and yet I 

get pretty accurate results. 

Twirled seams that are pressed flat 

The width at the end of the seam allowance is 

NOT consistent with the width in the middle 

Why does this happen? Most times, it 

occurs because we take our hands off 

of our pieces as the seam nears the end. 

We’re in that much of a hurry to grab the 

next pieces and the sewing machine takes 

control and let’s the pieces do whatever. 

This frequently occurs if there’s a 

diagonal seam on the reverse side 

(which there is). The bulk of that seam, 

will push the fabric to the left or right 

and you end up with this inaccuracy. 

It’s very important that you stay in 

control of those pieces and “man handle” 

them with your quilter’s awl until the 

absolute end of your seam. Stop sewing 

and then pick up your next piece. 

Perfect intersection 

I do twirl my seams on the reverse side 

(it’s an old habit that I can’t shake, but I 

like the way it looks on the front) and 

reduces bulk in the seam allowances 

particularly with diagonal seams. In a 

post on QUILTsocial, I touch on how to 

reduce bulk in the seam allowances. 

Intersection is absolutely flat with the twirled seam 

I love surprises and each time I 

discovered something on the Designer 

EPIC, well it was exciting. There are some 

absolutely amazing design features on 

the Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC. I 

hope you enjoyed reading about those 

features and the little tips on achieving 

those scant ¼” seams. 

I’ve got a tutorial on making the perfect 

Quarter Square Triangle. Read on. 

Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 53

2 critical tips to perfect Quarter Square Triangles 

I remember my first project with half 

square triangles. I sewed the squares 

together on the diagonal, cut them in 

half, pressed and then trimmed. What 

did I know about trimming and using 

the diagonal line as a reference? Nope 

– I just laid the ruler on my half square 

triangle and cut out the size I needed! 

There wasn’t a SINGLE point on that quilt. 

I’ve since learned how to trim half square 

triangles and it’s now one of my favorite units. 

The quarter square triangle used to 

give me grief until recently. Yes, I’m still 

learning; the day I stop – I’ll be dead! 

And yes – I still get frustrated and I 

still make mistakes, but I’m enjoying 

the learning process. If everything I 

sewed was perfect, that means I’m not 

challenging myself. 

So – I would make quarter square 

triangles and they would be wonky. 

Why? I spent some time one afternoon 

evaluating the problem and I found the 

solution which I’ll share with you. 

I’ll be using the Husqvarna Viking 

Designer EPIC to show you how to make 

perfect quarter square triangles. 

The first thing is to cut squares. Just how 

big should those squares be? Start by 

determining the FINISHED size of the 

units you need. Let’s say you need 3½” 

finished quarter square triangles, then 

add 1¼” to the FINISHED size. That means 

you will cut squares that measure 4¾”. 

When you sew the quarter square 

triangles with this method, you’ll get two 

identical quarter square triangles. 

Start by cutting two identical sized 

squares. They should have contrast to 

each other either in value or color. I 

happened to have some 5” squares 

handy so I used those. 

Draw a diagonal line and stitch a scant ¼” on 

either side. 

Cut on the diagonal drawn line. 

Technically it doesn’t matter which way 

you press the seams, but be consistent. 

If you press one seam to the dark, then 

press both to the dark. If you press one 

seam to the light, then press both to 

the light. You should now have two half 

square triangles. DO NOT TRIM. 

Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC 

Tutorial for Quarter Square Triangles 

There are different methods for making 

quarter square triangles. This tutorial 

uses half square triangles. As I work 

through the process, I’ll identify the 

pitfalls so you too can have perfect 

quarter square triangles. 

Two squares will yield two quarter square triangles. 

Draw a diagonal line on the wrong side 

of one of the squares. Place the two 

squares right sides together and stitch 

a scant ¼” on both sides of the diagonal 

line. Try to keep those stitching lines as 

straight as possible. 

Two half square triangles 

A potential pitfall is that the seams 

of the half square triangles are not 

pressed well. My seams are nice and 

flat. Always press these units from the 

RIGHT side. Never the wrong side. Why? 

You want to ensure that there are no 

tucks or folds in those seam lines, in 

particular at the corners. You can control 

that from the front, but you can’t see 

those potential tucks if you press from 

the back. 

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Another pitfall – be careful that you 

don’t stretch the seams. 

In the photo below, the arrows are 

pointing to the corners – this area is 

usually not pressed well and can cause 

issue with your points in the final units. 

Again, straight seams will give you a 

nicer finished unit. 

WAIT – don’t just lay the ruler on and 

draw a line and don’t line the ruler up 

with the corners of that block. NO – you 

want to place the ruler so it’s more or 

less lined up with the corners, but more 

importantly, the line you are about to 

draw should be 90 degrees to the first 

seam line. This is critical to the success of 

your quarter square triangles. 

Place the two half square triangles right sides together 

Carefully stitch a scant ¼” on both sides 

of that new diagonal line. Notice that I 

haven’t used pins. Again, the straighter 

these lines of stitching are, the better 

results you’ll have with your quarter 

square triangles. 

Press well right to the end of the seam. 

Now we’re going to draw another 

diagonal line on the reverse of ONE of 

the units. 

Draw another diagonal line. 

Second line MUST be 90 degrees to the first seam. 

Place the two half square triangle units 

right sides together alternating the 

colors. So the pink is on the blue and 

the blue is on the pink as shown below. 

Nest those two center seams up to each 

other. If you recall, I would not consider 

pinning these units. They’re small 

enough that they won’t distort or shift. 

But very important that those two seams 

be nested to each other. That’s why it’s 

important that the seams be pressed to 

the same fabric. In this case, the seams 

were pressed to the blue fabric and this 

allows the seams allowances to nest 

against each other. This in turn helps to 

get a perfect intersection in the middle 

of the unit. 

Stitch a scant ¼” on both sides of the diagonal line. 

A scant ¼” stitched on both sides of the diagonal line. 

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| issue 8 55

If you want to check how accurate your 

centers are before you cut the units 

apart, pull back one of the loose corners. 

A perfect match – no pins! 

Pull back the corner to check the intersection 

Cut the units apart on the diagonal line. 

Two untrimmed quarter square triangles 

The last step is to trim the units. It’s a 

whole lot easier, if you use a SQUARE ruler 

to do your squaring up. I’m right handed, 

so I position the ruler with the 1” and 1” 

markings in the top right hand corner. If I 

were left handed, those markings would 

be in the top left hand corner. 

I now need to know the UNFINISHED 

size of my quarter square units. I want 

units that are 3½” FINISHED so to get the 

unfinished size, I now add ½” for the seam 

allowances. That means, I’m going to trim 

these units down to 4” UNFINISHED. 

Now it may be not be exactly perfect, so 

you may have to jiggle the ruler around 

or you may have to jiggle your block 

underneath the ruler. Once it’s lined up 

to the best of your ability – then trim 

along the right hand side and the top 

side of the ruler. 

Rotate the block 180 degrees. Line up 

the clean cut edges with the 4” (in this 

instance) lines on the ruler and again, trim 

along the right and top edges of the ruler. 

Five reference points for trimming the quarter 

square triangles 

And there’s the perfect quarter square 

triangle! 

Units are cut apart on the diagonal line 

Press the seams. Confession time again 

– I did twirl those seams on the back. As 

I mentioned, old habits die hard. Plus 

I really like the look of the seam being 

distributed in all four directions, rather 

than have that final seam across the 

center of the block. 

Twirled seams on the back 

Preparing to square up the quarter square 

triangle unit 

Like the half square triangle, there’s a 

better way to trim these units, which in 

itself becomes a critical step in making 

the perfect quarter square triangles. 

In the photo below, you can see that 

I have 5 reference points. Since I’m 

trimming my blocks to 4”, I can use the 

intersection of the 2” lines on the ruler to 

find the center of the block. Then I can 

place the intersection of the 4” on the 

bottom left of the block. You can see the 

other three reference points below. 

Trimmed quarter square triangle 

Hopefully this tutorial takes the mystery 

out of making perfect quarter square 

triangles. With the help of the Husqvarna 

Viking Designer EPIC to get those nice 

straight seams and that scant ¼” seam 

allowance, making these units was a 

breeze. Don’t forget to lower that stitch 

length to 2 as you’ll be slicing through 

some seams. 

Let's continue this review of the Designer 

EPIC with some of its embroidery 

features. 

Q 


UILTsocial

Designed 

for the details. 

Featuring Dual Duty Plus ® 

Hand Quilting Thread. 

For more information visit: 

makeitcoats.com 

Pattern “Modern Traditional” courtesy of Cheryl A. Adam 

15-023 © 2015 Coats. Coats is a registered trademark. All rights reserved. 

57

Easy to embroider on the 


While the Designer EPIC is a fabulous 

sewing machine, it’s embroidery 

capabilities are spectacular. I remember 

my first embroidery sewing machine. 

The design work was done on a 

computer and then transferred to the 

sewing machine via a 3½” floppy disk. 

Does everyone even remember floppy 

disks? Probably not and you don’t want 

to go there. 

Let’s get started and see what the 

Designer EPIC has to offer. 


The first thing you have to do is to 

remove the accessory tray. That’s easy, it 

just slides off leaving the machine in the 

free arm position. 

Designer EPIC with the embroidery unit attached 

Wow – that looks exciting. That’s a LOT of 

space to play with. Wait until you see the 

size of the hoops. 

You’re probably thinking that machine 

embroidery is going to be complicated, 

however, it’s much easier than you think. 

Don’t forget that the Designer EPIC has 

the JoyOS advisor and the User’s Guide 

built in. There’s a lot of information right 

at your finger tips and I’m going to show 

you just how easy it is to learn. 

Should I want to do a sewing technique 

that I’m not sure of, I can choose from 

one of the options shown above. If I 

want to learn about an embroidery 

technique, then I select Embroidery and 

if I want to learn some other things 

(which I’ll show you next), I’d choose the 

Knowledge Center. 

And the entire User’s Guide is right there 

as well if I need to find out something 

specific. No searching for misplaced 

papers or manuals. I love this feature! 

I started off by choosing the Embroidery 

section of the JoyOS advisor so I can 

learn a different embroidery technique. 

I can change the background color in 

the hoop area that will appear on the 

screen. While this doesn’t seem like a big 

deal, it’s a big deal. Depending on the 

color of the stitches on the screen, you 

may need to change the background 

color so you can see the stitches 

properly. A very useful feature indeed! 

Then you have various embroidery 

techniques that you can do. There’s 

a selection menu and within each 

menu, there are sub categories – each 

explaining an embroidery technique. 

Accessory tray is removed to allow free arm sewing 

Now slide the embroidery unit onto the 

Designer EPIC. The unit is very long so 

you want to make sure that you have 

plenty of space around the machine. The 

hoop will need space to move as well 

behind the sewing machine. 

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The JoyOS advisor is the start-up screen when you 

turn on the Designer EPIC 

This screen may look intimidating when 

you first turn on the Designer EPIC, but 

in fact, it’s very easy considering all the 

available options. If I’m going to sew, I hit 

“Start New” to take me to the sewing mode. 

If the embroidery unit is attached, when 

I hit “Start New”, I’ll be taken to the screen 

where I edit my embroidery design. 

First page of the embroidery tab in the JoyOS advisor

In the photo below, I’ve chosen Specialty 

Hoop techniques (these are nonstandard 

hoops that are necessary to 

perform various techniques). Within 

this category, you can see there are four 

separate topics that I can select. 

In the burgundy area below the designs, 

are the other design menus. Within each 

menu there are numerous designs. 

You can also see that my hoop area is 

blue which is the default. 

Available topics in the Specialty Hoop technique section 

Here’s another category called Surfaced 

Embroidery. Don’t know what this 

means? There’s an explanation right 

below the grey boxes. Surfaced 

Embroidery is all about dimensional 

effects. Again, there’s information on the 

three techniques. 

Step by Step Instructions for Basic Embroidery 

If you turn the Designer EPIC on and the 

embroidery unit is attached, this is the 

pop-up message you’re going to get. 

It’s a reminder to move everything out 

of the way of the arm so it doesn’t get 

damaged when it starts up. 

I love these reminders. We think we 

know how to operate the machine, 

but then we forget about the simple 

things, like moving stuff out of the 

way, which can cause a lot of damage. 

And there’s no time to have a machine 

in the repair shop! 

One of the embroidery design menus 

Remember that this screen is similar to a 

tablet. I can swipe up and down to scroll 

through the designs in one menu. Very 

useful and so easy to use. 

Surfaced Embroidery categories 

The next picture of the STEP BY STEP and 

very detailed instructions on how to 

do basic embroidery. You get the list of 

materials/equipment required and how 

to set up the Designer EPIC. This is the 

first page of the instructions. You have 

to scroll down to get the rest. It really 

doesn’t get any easier than this. The 

hardest thing now is to choose a design! 

Note these detailed instructions are 

included for any of the embroidery 

techniques that you choose! 

Pop up message to clear the area around the 

embroidery unit 

There are many built-in embroidery 

designs that come with the Designer 

EPIC. In addition you can incorporate 

the fonts and the decorative stitches. 

The possibilities without ever buying 

any other designs is mind-boggling. 

Scrolling up and down through one menu of 

embroidery designs 

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| issue 8 59

In this photo, I’m scrolling side to side. 

Scrolling side to side will allow me 

to scroll through the various menus. 

An easy way to find the category of 

embroidery designs you’re looking for. 

Something else that’s very important 

is selecting the correct hoop size. The 

Designer EPIC will NOT start a stitchout 

if an appropriate hoop size is not 

selected. This is a safety feature and 

a very important one. No danger of 

starting a design and realizing the hoop 

isn’t big enough. You can see that there 

are lots of options for hoops. I like to 

select the smallest hoop possible for the 

design that I’m working on. 

My biggest issue with hoops? The sizes 

are metric. There are many things that I 

can deal with in metric, the temperature 

outside, driving a car, but for some reason, 

inches and centimeters just don’t translate 

for me. I must make this a “must learn” item 

for this year. It would save me a lot of time, 

not just for hoops, but in general. 

Scrolling side to side through the various 

embroidery design menus 

In the next photo, you can see that 

the pink tab opens up the embroidery 

design menus. I can also load a stitch 

(blue tab), load a font (green tab) 

or bring a saved file in from the file 

manager (red tab). The brown tab is the 

JoyOS advisor project tab. YES – there 

are designs available depending on the 

specialty embroidery technique you’ve 

chosen in the JoyOS advisor. This is so 

awesome! The bottom tab is the thread 

color edit tab. 

Remember that the Designer EPIC has 

internet capabilities. That means files can 

be downloaded directly to the Designer 

EPIC. I can upload saved files to the 

mySewNet cloud. 

These capabilities are totally amazing. 

Remember I said that on my old 

embroidery machine that all of the 

design work was done on the computer 

and then loaded via a floppy disk? 

There’s just no comparison between the 

two machines. What was once a very 

laborious and technical task, is so easy 

that anyone can do machine embroidery. 

Using MANY different techniques. 

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Lots of options to bring files/designs into the 

Designer EPIC 

Once I choose a design (in this case, 

Number 1 from the L Heart and Butterfly 

Designs menu), then information about 

that design appears at the bottom of 

the screen. I get the file name, the size, 

the number of stitches and how many 

thread colors there are in the design. All 

of this is very useful information when 

you want to stitch something out. 

Information about the selected design 

Wide variety of hoop sizes and types available

Three hoops come standard with the 

Designer EPIC. I’m going to talk a bit 

more about the hoops and how to hoop 

your fabric later this week. 

The three sizes are: 

360 x 260 

260 x 200 

120 x 120 

In case you’re like me and those 

numbers mean nothing to you, the 

equivalents are: 

14” x 10” 

10” x 7½” 

4½” x 4½” 

There’s a very large hoop that you can 

purchase separately. It’s called the 

Majestic Hoop and measures 360 x 350 

or for the metric challenged among us – 

that’s 14” x 13¾”. Now that’s huge! 

Here’s a design that I selected to stitch 

out. Yes, there are loads of buttons and 

options on the screen. The good news 

is you don’t have to touch any of them 

in order to stitch out a design. Simply 

go through the menus, select a design, 

thread the embrodiery machine, hoop 

your fabric and select GO. But once you 

get the hang of those basics, they will go 

along much quicker and you’re going to 

want to do a whole lot more! 

And if you forget a step, you can simply 

follow along on the handy built-in 

instructions on the tablet like screen! 

Three hoops 

come standard 

One of the many built-in embroidery designs 

Oh – the possibilities are endless. I’ll be 

doing some embroidery later this week 

but I wanted to give you a peek under 

the hood just in case you thought it was 

complicated. There are loads of options 

and once you get comfortable, then you 

can start to use those options. There’s 

plenty of stuff to keep you busy while 

you learn. 

Keep reading as we delve a bit more into 

the mystery of machine embroidery with 

the Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC. 

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| issue 8 61

Inspira stabilizers 

save your machine embroidery work 

Stabilizers are critical to the success of 

your machine embroidery. Without a 

stabilizer, your work will pull, warp and 

pucker, making a very unattractive and 

hard to work with design. 

There are many stabilizers on the market. 

Not only different brands, but many 

different types and while you might be 

able to substitute one type for another 

in a pinch, it’s very important to use the 

correct stabilizer for the job at hand. 

Otherwise, you’re asking for trouble. 

The Inspira brand of stabilizers is 

excellent and comes with a wide variety 

of types. 

Wait! Before you say that this is going to 

get complicated – it’s not! Remember, I 

mentioned the Knowledge Center on 

the JoyOS advisor – that’s the first screen 

you see when you turn on the Designer 

EPIC? Instead of hitting Start New, or 

the User’s Guide, or the Embroidery 

Techniques, I’m going to the Knowledge 

Center. Guess what’s in there? 

Yep – all kinds of information about 

stabilizers. I told you this entire process 

is so easy. No hunting on the internet, 

no trying to find a lost manual – it’s all 

built into the Designer EPIC. 

Small selection of Inspira stabilizers 

Stabilizer guide selected in the Knowledge Center 

Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC with embroidery unit attached 

There are different categories of 

stabilizers. The one selected above is the 

specialty category. 

The one below is the Tear A Way 

products. Don’t know what a tearaway 

stabilizer is? The description is shown 

below the row of gray boxes. 

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List of water soluble stabilizers 

OK – it’s time to get to work. I want to get 

out of the Knowledge Center and into 

the work area. I simply hit the START NEW 

button on the bottom right of the screen. 

Tear A Way stabilizer menu 

Did you notice that the labels on the 

screen are the same as the actual 

product? That makes it super easy to 

know you have the correct stabilizer. And 

if you need more detailed information 

about the stabilizer, just click on the icon 

for that particular one and you get all 

the information you could possibly want. 

You get an in-depth description of the 

stabilizer, when to use iit, and detailed 

instructions on how to use it. 

I told you – it doesn’t get any easier! 

Press Start New to get to work 

But wait! I need to sew something 

before I start my embroidery project. No 

worries. I can sew WITH the embroidery 

unit attached. I simply toggle from 

embroidery to sewing mode in the top 

right hand corner. 

Choose the stitch and the appropriate settings 

I would be careful of the size of project 

that I work on. While I could work on 

something fairly large, I wouldn’t want my 

project catching on the embroidery arm. 

Information on Tear-A-Way Stabilizers 

Toggle switch between embroidery and sewing mode 

Now that the sewing mode screen 

is up, I can choose the stitch and the 

appropriate settings that I want. 

And yes – I can SEW with the embroidery 

unit attached. This is fabulous. It saves 

having to remove the embroidery unit, 

find a safe place to store it and then put 

it back on when done stitching. 

Sewing with the embroidery unit attached 

I’m not going to have a chance to hoop 

anything, but wanted to show you that on 

all the hoops, there are four notches that 

assist you in lining up your design on your 

fabric. It takes a bit of practice to get that 

right. While I’m doing an okay job with 

hooping, I do try to hoop a big piece of 

fabric and then cut my image after. That’s 

the cheating way to do it, but it works!! I’ll 

have more on hooping. 

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UILTsocial 

| issue 8 63

Four guides to help position your item when hooping 

The hoop has a spring lock on it and 

a screw to help keep that fabric and 

stabilizer tight in the hoop. The last thing 

you want is to have ripples or movement 

during the machine embroidery process. 

In addition, there are clips that help 

stabilize the larger hoops. 

While it sounds like there are a lot of 

steps to do machine embroidery, don’t 

forget that they’re all documented in the 

JoyOS advisor. Step by step! 

Let’s not forget that if you don’t want 

to sit at the sewing machine to browse 

the User’s Guide, you can download 

it to your tablet and read it at your 

leisure. I wasn’t a fan of e-books until 

recently. Now I think they’re great. Very 

handy, very useful and easy to use. That’s 

important to me, especially since I can be 

very technically challenged sometimes! 

Clips are used to help stabilize the larger hoops 

Spring and a screw to tighten the embroidery hoop 

Q 


UILTsocial 

User’s Guide on a tablet

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Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 65

The EPIC embroidery features 

of the HV Designer EPIC 

I'm going to explore stitch-outs on the 

Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC. And I’ll 

only be scratching the surface of what 

amazing embroidery techniques are 

available. 

How to hoop your fabric 

You want to start by cutting a piece of 

stabilizer that is slightly larger than your 

hoop. Layer your fabric (right side up) 

on top of the stabilizer. I don’t bother to 

cut my fabric down to smaller sizes, but 

you don’t want the piece to be too big 

either as it’ll be moving around as the 

hoop moves. 

Designer EPIC with embroidery unit attached 

Here’s a quick tip about those stabilizers. 

Once you remove the plastic, that label 

is going to get misplaced and you want 

to keep it with the stabilizer. Simply tuck 

the label inside the center of the tube 

and you’ll always know what kind of 

stabilizers you have. 

Built in step by step instructions for machine 

embroidery 

Here’s the design I chose. I’m doing a 

very simple embroidery, but there are a 

lot of color changes. 

Layer the fabric over the stabilizer 

Next up, you’re going to open the quick 

release (the spring) on the outer part of 

the hoop and place it underneath the 

fabric/stabilizer combination. 

Place the outer hoop underneath the fabric/stabilizer 

combination 

Insert the stabilizer label inside the roll of stabilizer 

Remember, if you’ve never done 

machine embroidery before, all the steps 

are built into the Embroidery Section of 

the JoyOS advisor. Just follow the step by 

step instructions. Simple! 

Place the inner hoop on top of the 

fabric, making sure that the arrow at the 

bottom of the outer hoop is matching 

up with the arrow at the bottom of the 

inner hoop. Essentially, you don’t want 

that inner hoop to be upside down. 

Press the inner hoop inside the outer 

hoop. I start at the bottom left and work 

my way around the hoop until I end 

up at the bottom right corner which is 

where the quick release and the screw 

are located. 

Design to stitch out 

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Place the inner hoop over the outer hoop with the 

fabric and stabilizer sandwiched in between 

Once the inner hoop is secured inside 

the outer hoop, close the quick release 

and tighten up the screw. There’s no 

need to go crazy on tightening that 

screw – you want it secure, not break it! 

Centering lines for hooping 

If I’m using a larger hoop, then I can 

further stabilize the hoop by using clips 

at various points around the perimeter 

of the hoop. They’re easy to put on and 

easy to take off and I’ve never had one 

pop out during the stitch out process. 

The inner hoop is secured inside the outer hoop 

The outer hoop has a tendency to 

move around and if that is causing you 

problems, you can purchase a hoop grip 

that you can slide the hoop connector 

into, in order to stabilize the outer hoop. 

I must get one of these as I think it 

would solve a lot of my hooping issues. 

If you’re going to do your embroidery 

on a garment or need the design in a 

specific location, then find the center of 

the desired design position and mark 

two intersecting lines across it. Those 

two lines will be used to line up with the 

guide markings on the hoop. 

In the next sample, I just drew those 

lines on with a chalk pencil, while it was 

already hooped. I know – a big cheat, 

but you get the idea. And note that the 

center of the design is NOT the center 

of the hoop. There’s a reason why the 

top half is bigger than the bottom 

half. That doesn’t matter, the centering 

lines are what matters. Don’t eyeball it – 

you’ll be disappointed. 

Clips to help stabilize the larger hoops 

I’ve changed the foot to one that is 

appropriate for machine embroidery. 

Sensor Q-Foot for machine embroidery 

My design is ready to be stitched out. I 

can now proceed to the Embroidery 

Stitch Out mode. I get a screen 

reminding me how I need to set up the 

Designer EPIC for the stitching. Easy to 

follow instructions, easy to select the 

options and now I’m ready! 

Reminder of settings for machine embroidery 

Remember I told you that the Designer 

EPIC wouldn’t let you stitch if you didn’t 

have the correct hoop? The design I’m 

stitching out recommends a 200 x 200 

hoop. That’s the minimum size required 

to stitch the design. I don’t have a 200 

x 200 hoop, so I choose the next largest 

one that I had. That was the 200 x 260. I 

can always go larger, but never smaller. 

However, I didn’t advise the Designer 

EPIC that I was using a different hoop 

and so I got a gentle reminder. 

Gentle reminder to attach the correct hoop 

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| issue 8 67

Notice that it wasn’t just reminding me 

to attach the hoop, but it was looking 

for the 200 x 200 hoop. AHA – now I 

understand. Once I changed the settings 

in the Embroidery Edit Mode to the 200 

x 260 hoop, which matched the physical 

hoop I was using, I was good to go. 

The list of thread colors now appears on 

the screen. The size of the color block is 

relative to the number of stitches in the 

design. In the bottom right-hand corner 

of the screen, you can see the total 

number of stitches in the design and 

beneath that number is the number of 

stitches for that color. 

And notice on the bottom left, the hoop 

size is now 200 x 260. 

I started the stitch out and went upstairs 

to edit some pictures while the Designer 

EPIC was stitching. WAIT! I forgot a very 

very important step to this embroidery 

stitch out process. 

I grabbed my smart phone and 

downloaded an app – mySewMonitor 

App. I very quickly created an account 

with mySewnet. No machine on-line. 

Shoot – I’ve already started the 

embroidery. Can I connect the Designer 

EPIC while it’s stitching? The answer 

is YES. I brought the sewing machine 

online and connected to my account on 

mySewnet. 

YES – the app on my cell phone now 

shows me the status of the stitch 

out. Isn’t that just the most awesome 

feature? I see the status of the 

entire design, I see the status of that 

particular thread color. Basically, the 

same information that is on the screen. 

It means that I don’t have to be in the 

same room as the Designer EPIC, nor 

do I have to periodically hang my head 

over the staircase to hear if the machine 

is still stitching. I got a nice gentle 

reminder on the phone every time the 

thread needed to be changed. I think 

at one point, the thread broke and I was 

reminded of that as well. 

Even when I took a run to the local 

coffee shop and my phone was 

temporarily off my home network, the 

moment I arrived in my driveway, I 

got a reminder to change the thread. I 

LOVE this feature!!! 

Setting up mySewnet account while the Designer 

EPIC is stitching out a design 

There’s my account on mySewnet. Since 

I’ve just opened the account, there 

are no files to sync. BUT – look what 

happened next. 

The thread color changes are represented on the right 

Starting the stitch out 

mySewnet account is synced 

Status update on the phone app 

Q 


UILTsocial

The plan now is to make something with 

those coorindating fabrics. I more or less 

chose the colors from those two fabrics. 

Notification to change the thread 

I love that the “thread” on the spool 

in the forefront “emptied” to show the 

progress of that color in the stitch out. 

You have to remember that it doesn’t 

take much to amuse me. 

The color on the thread spool shows the progress 

of that color 

Complete! 

The stitch out is complete! 

The finished stitch out. He’s pretty cute. 

Notice that I didn’t follow the colors 

suggested in the thread color chart. Since 

it’s my stitch out, I can do what I want! 

Fabric to make a zippered tote with my 

embroidery design 

My plan is to make a zippered tote. 

I barely scratched the surface of what I 

want to show you with the Husqvarna 

Viking Designer EPIC. There are many 

more exciting things we can do with this 

sewing/embroidery machine. 

I hope you enjoyed this little adventure 

and that you learned some tips along 

the way. The capabilities of the Designer 

EPIC and the attention to detail has my 

head spinning. 

If you’re into serious machine 

embroidery, the Designer EPIC is your 

machine. I don’t think there’s anything 

that this machine can’t do. 

Close to finishing the stitch out 

Pretty cute design! 


www.crazyquilteronabike.blogspot.ca 

Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 69

Autumn Harmony 

within a Log Cabin quilted sampler 

Nancy Devine 

“There is a harmony in autumn, 

and a luster in its sky, which 

through the summer is not heard 

or seen, as if it could not be, as if 

it had not been!” 

– Percy Bysshe Shelley 

I love autumn, that season of color. As quilters, we appreciate the vivid hues of 

changing leaves, set against the intense cyan skies. These postcard-pretty days 

are often bathed in the pure sunshine. It’s like a big finale before the greys and icy 

whites of winter. 

That saturation of colors is the inspiration behind my Autumn Harmony wall quilt. 

Made up of four large log cabin blocks in low volume creams and neutrals, the 

fanciful batik foliage dances across the surface. 

And it all starts with scraps and strings. This is the ultimate frugal art piece. 

I’ve begged batik scraps from quilting friends, and prepared some lightweight 

quilting muslin flat in preparation for some string pieced foliage. 

Let’s get this color party started by creating a cozy quilted canvas to showcase our 

wild autumnal colors. 

Q 


UILTsocial 

Photos by Nancy Devine

finished measurements 31” x 31” 

materials 

•• 

Various quilting fabric remnants in 

neutrals (creams, beiges, very light 

yellow) 

•• 

Green batik scraps and pieces 

•• 

Yellow, red, gold, pink batiks 

•• 

Bias binding in brown batik 

•• 

Binding strips 

•• 

Bias binding maker 

•• 

Tailor’s awl 

•• 

Finger pressing tool 

•• 

Batting 

•• 

505 basting spray 

•• 

Template plastic 

•• 

Spray Starch 

•• 

Freezer paper 

•• 

Small paint brush 

•• 

Clever Clips (large and small) 

•• 

Marking pen 

•• 

Flatter pressing spray 

•• 

Quilting muslin 

•• 

Gütermann silk thread 

•• 

Size 10 hand quilting needles 

•• 

24” quilting hoop 

•• 

Thimble 

•• 

Birch branch 

•• 

Curtain rings 

We’re going to make four 14½” log cabin 

blocks. 

The log cabin is a beginner block that 

requires a lot of cutting. It’s a perfect use 

for jelly roll pre-cuts, since they are 2½” 

wide strips. Unfortunately, you might not 

have a jelly roll bundle of neutral fabrics. 

No worries. 

Let’s whip out our rulers and rotary 

cutters and make some 2½” strips. 

I cut seven strips from eight different 

neutrals. It helps to have some Clever 

Clips around to clip the strips together as 

you go. It just keeps everything tidy. 

After you’ve cut your strips, you then 

cut them (which is called sub-cutting in 

quilting lingo) into varying lengths, but 

the width stays the same. 

For one block, cut: 

Two 2½” squares 

Two 4½” strips 







Start piecing by joining the two 2½” 

squares, followed by the 4½” strip, all 

around the block, pressing with each 

addition. Try to get the strips to lay as flat 

as possible after piecing them. I’ll make 

for easier time later when you’re quilting 

the sandwich. 

Make four 14½” blocks. (Please see the 

layout diagram above). 

Join these two blocks together, then join 

the resulting half square to form a 28” x 

28” quilt top. 

Make a quilt sandwich spray baste layers 

together, using safely pins to secure the 

corners. 

Free motion quilt in wavy vertical lines. 

I added leafy squiggles along the lines. 

Set aside. 

Spray baste the quilt sandwich to prepare it 

for free motion quilting, pinning the corners 

to prevent shifting. 

Completed blocks are pressed flat before being 

joined together to create a large quilt top. 

Cut out 2½” strips from a variety of cream, 

beige and low volume neutral fabrics to create 

a log cabin canvas. 

Log Cabin block diagram 

Use Flatter pressing spray and a finger pressing tool 

to make the Log Cabin blocks as flat as possible. 

Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 71

How to coordinate color-soaked batiks 

to make fanciful fall foliage 

Stacks of green strips come together in a string piecing 

symphony of color. 

Group the strips together to make it easier to mix up 

the colors when string piecing the leaves. 

Start by placing one green strip at a bit of an angle in 

the center of a muslin rectangle. 

Next… creating the fabulous leaves 

that will be a focal point on our Autumn 

Harmony quilted sampler. 

Begin by cutting 2” wide strips from 

various green batik scraps. These should 

be at least 10” long. 

I cut about 80 strips from the scraps I’d 

scrounged from my quilting buddies. 

You can take a more design-oriented 

approach, but I kind of enjoyed the 

randomness of it all. 

There was some order to it, honest. 

When I cut strips from one fabric, I 

grouped them all together in the same 

pile. I found it easier to have the scraps 

grouped when I began putting the 

leaves together. 

String-piecing method for each leaf: 

Cut eight pieces of thin quilter’s muslin, 

9” wide by 13” long. 

Start at the center of the muslin 

rectangle, placing a scrap right side up 

and a slight angle. 

Pin into place. 

Place a the next strip on top of the 

pinned one, right sides together, making 

the raw edges align as best you can. 

Use a short stitch length and sew 

through the fabric and muslin, using a 

¼” seam. 

Finger press the seam allowance, 

using the handy finger presser. Add 

the next strip, continuing until the 

muslin is covered. 

You’ll be doing eight stringpieced 

rectangles. 

Press the finished rectangles on the top 

(right side) of the fabric with a generous 

spray of Flatter. It smells heavenly, and 

will provide a smooth surface for next 

project – the fabulous fall foliage on the 

Autumn Harmony quilted sampler. 

Sew another strip onto the first one, and use a finger 

pressing tool to make it as flat as possible. 

Q 


UILTsocial

don't miss these 

projects & tutorials online! 

Q 

UILTsocial 

.com 

5 tips 

for 

sewing 

with 

jelly 

rolls 

READ NOW 

READ NOW 

1 simple 

trick for 

perfect 

curved 

piecing 

every 

time 

READ NOW 

Fussy 

cutting 

printed 

fabric 

using 

Sew Easy 

templates 

READ NOW 

Making a Fidget Quilt with the 

Brother NQ900 machine 

and there's so much more! 

Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 73

How to make needle turn applique easier 

This part is about is about preparing 

leaves for needle turn applique and 

making bias strips for tree branches. 

Let’s get this color party started with the leaves for 

the Autumn Harmony wall quilt. 

Let’s get started on the leaves. Trace 

the templates provided onto quilting 

template plastic and cut out. 

Download the templates and trace them onto 

quilting template plastic. 

The plastic will allow you see the green 

striped fabric underneath. I decided to 

cut out the leaves a a bit of an angle 

to create some visual interest. I added 

a ¼” seam allowance, and then traced 

around the template. Cut out the 

shapes on the fabric. 

Preparing for needle turn applique 

seems like a daunting process, and it’s 

time consuming, but I prefer to have a 

firmly pressed edge before I begin, rather 

than trying to turn under the raw edge 

as I applique the pieces to the main quilt. 

This is particularly important in this 

project, since the leaves are made 

up of two layers of fabric. To do this, 

I create a very strong freezer paper 

foundation. 

Iron four layers of freezer paper together. 

Ironing the shiny side down onto fabric 

is a way to create a reusable template. 

Ironing the paper together creates a 

tough but flexible iron table surface that 

doesn’t pull apart. 

Clip the edges of the leaf shape. Spray a 

generous amount of spray starch into a 

small container. (I use an egg cup.) Use 

a small paint brush to soak the edges of 

the leaf shape with starch, then turn the 

edges onto the freezer paper template. 

Press the edges into the shape. 

I found working with the top points of 

the leaves first helped the other edges 

to form more easily around the rest of 

the shape. 

Repeat for all the leaves. 

For the berries, trace the circle templates 

on the plastic and then create it also 

onto the bonded freezer paper. Trace 

each circle shape onto fabric. Knot a 

double length of thread and sew a 

running stitch close to the edge of the 

fabric circle. Pull the thread tight around 

the freezer paper circle. Paint some 

starch around the inside edge of the 

circle and press. When the circle has 

cooled, clip the knot and remove the 

gathering thread and then the paper 

template. Give the circle a final press. 

Repeat for all the berries. 

This step will take a bit of time, but take 

your time and you’ll be rewarded with 

applique-ready shapes. 

Fabric tape cut on the bias is fed through a 

bias tape maker to create branches that will 

gentle curve. 

For the bias binding branches –say that 

five times fast – you’re going to cut out 

three 1¾” strips of brown batik cut along 

the bias. To do this, fold down one corner 

of the brown batik diagonally to the 

opposite edge. Cut the strip to the width 

on the diagonal. 

Feed the resulting strip through the wide 

edge of the bias tape maker, pushing it 

through to the starting point with the 

point of the tailor’s awl. Pull the fabric 

through the bias tape maker, pressing 

with the iron. Go slowly and steadily to 

create a single fold bias strip. 

When the strips have cooled, wind them 

in around some flat card, securing with a 

Clever Clip, for safe keeping. 

Create a crisp edge for the needle turn applique 

by painting the fabric edges with starch before 

pressing around a freezer paper template. 

Gather and press the berry appliques, using spray 

starch to create crisp curves for applique. 

Q 


UILTsocial

LARGE 

BERRY 

finished measurements 

leaf 10” 

berries 4”, 3”, 2” 

SMALL 

BERRY 

MED 

BERRY 

Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 75

How Unique fabric glue stick 

can help your applique work 

As we continue our sewing work on 

the Autumn Harmony wall quilt. We’ve 

created all the elements for the quilt – 

four branches, eight leaves and 19 berries. 

Now it’s time to put it all together. 

This quilt began life as a doodle on a 

scrap of paper. I find it easier to draw on 

a small scale. I enlarged the doodle on a 

photocopier until it was almost to scale 

and then I colored with pencil crayons. I 

used this drawing to guide my layout. 

You can use my layout or use one that is 

more pleasing to you. 

Start by adding the bias branches. These 

can be encouraged to bend because 

they’re cut on the bias. Use Unique 

fabric glue stick to temporarily position 

the branches into a curve. I turned the 

raw edges under and use a glue stick to 

secure this tiny hem. Pin the branches 

into place. 

Once they’re in place, pin the leaves and 

the berries in place. 

Using one strand of thread in a 

contrasting color, baste all the elements 

to the quilted base. Since the hand 

stitching will take several days, and 

much movement in and out of a quilting 

hoop, thread basting seemed a better 

option than spray basting. If you prefer 

to machine applique the elements, spray 

basting will work just fine. 

When stitching the appliques, use a tiny 

applique stitch and try to keep an even 

tension. This will help avoid puckers in 

the finished product. You’ll also notice 

that the applique stitches show on the 

back of the wall quilt. Don’t fret. No one 

will ever see them. It will be on a wall. 

The colors are so vibrant, who cares 

what’s on the back? 

We’ll walk through finishing up our fanciful 

fall wall hanging. Continue reading. 

Unique fabric glue stick and several well-placed pins will ensure the bias branches 

curve properly. 

Stitch the appliques to the quilted base using a tiny applique stitch in coordinating 

silk thread colors. 

Q 


UILTsocial

How to create an embroidered quilt label 

using your sewing machine 

We laid out and appliqued all the 

elements of our Autumn Harmony wall 

quilt and now we’re going to bind the 

finished piece, as well as create a label 

and a hanging system for it. 

Press the quilt on the top side with lot of 

steam. Don’t iron it. Press with the iron 

up and then down, move the iron off the 

quilt and then down to the next area. 

Ironing could create a crease exactly 

where you don’t want one. It’s been my 

experience that these surprise creases 

stay stubbornly in place, so I do my best 

to avoid them. Trim the borders so that 

everything is straight and even. 

Create six 2½” binding strips, or use the 

strips left over from those cut for the log 

cabin blocks. 

Bind the wall quilt using this excellent 

and straight forward method by 

QUILTsocial’s own Elaine Theriault. 

I like to slip stitch the binding onto the 

back of the quilt by hand, and pressing the 

binding well once it is all stitched in place. 

A few years back, a winter ice storm 

gifted us with several white birch 

branches. It was sad for the tree, but 

good for me. I salvaged the branches 

and used them for some landscaping 

projects. There was one that was fairly 

straight, so I decided to use it as a rustic 

hanging rod for my quilt. 

I found some coordinating clip curtain 

rings at my local fabric store. I attached 

eight of them to the top of the quilt, and 

threaded them onto the birch branch. 

I’m going to put up two curtain rod wall 

brackets so I can Autumn Harmony it 

in my living room, where I’ll enjoy the 

colors of fall – ALL year 'round 

Until we meet again, remember to make 

a mess and create some fun! 

A fabulous fall finale for our Autumn Harmony 

wall quilt 

Press the quilt on the top side with lot of 

steam. Don’t iron it. Press with the iron 

up and then down, move the iron off the 

quilt and then down to the next area. 

Ironing could create a crease exactly 

where you don’t want one. It’s been my 

experience that these surprise creases 

stay stubbornly in place, so I do my best 

to avoid them. Trim the borders so that 

everything is straight and even. 

Trim the quilt so that the edges are straight and even. 

Set up your machine for free motion quilting, 

and then stitch on the drawn lines to create an 

embroidered quilt label. 

I created the label using a bit of fabric 

from a previous project. See this post for 

how I created a lined paper label. 

I wrote my details using UNIQUE 

SEWING Air Erasable Fabric Marker. Then, 

I threaded my machine with brown 

thread, dropped the machine’s feed 

dogs, switched to my embroidery foot, 

and traced over the ink lines with the 

machine, going over the lines to create a 

sketchy bold pen and ink look. I cut out 

mini replicas of the leaves and berries 

and stitched them down in the same 

way. It’s a fun technique that takes some 

practice, but I love the look. 

Use HeatnBond Lite to adhere the label 

to the back of the wall quilt. 

Nancy Devine 


This label is finished, and like the rest of the quilt, 

colorful and fun. 

Just hanging out! 

Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 77

A Calm Winter 

a body pillow wrap 

An adventure in stenciling & machine embroidery 

Q 


UILTsocial

In this article, we explore embroidery stenciling technique 

using fabric dye to create your one of a kind wrap for your 

favourite body pillow. These pillows are generally larger 

than most standard pillows. These can be used for an 

existing pillow you already have, or you can sew your own 

body pillow to co-ordinate with your pillow wrap. For this 

issue our focus is everything about slopes, snow, wintery 

highlights. And this was achieved by selecting embroidery 

of that nature, with snowflakes, trees, and decorative 

snowflake like stitches. 

Imagine this pillow displayed in an entrance to a 

kitchen, a mudroom, in any room of the house on the 

longer bench style chairs. 

Also visualize colour and room variations and beds, 

rattan or wicker furniture. Make seasonal versions. 

Choose embroideries which are open and with lighter 

stitch counts, trace outlines, sketch-like embroideries, 

all of which can also be found or created in the 

Premier+ embroidery software. 

The idea is to experiment. The techniques can be 

applied to any project for home decorating, fashion 

or quilting. Another creative idea is to explore dyeing 

process with an assortment of methods. 

There’s a multitude of ways to use the embroidered blocks, 

to include wall hangings stretched over canvas, quilts, 

handbags, pillows, home decorating accessories. 

This pillow wrap can be pieced and then quilted. You 

may choose to line it or make it reversible. Or it can 

be left as just pieced and no quilt batting. There are so 

many possibilities. 

Fabric dyes can be used for this stenciling technique, 

or bleach dyeing using bleach and water, or tie dye, or 

dip dyeing or even tea dyeing. Fabric dyes come in a 

multitude of variations as well. The one selected for this 

project was a dye using hot water. 

The reason this is considered embroidery stenciling, 

is because the stencil is created using machine 

embroidery, with a special stabilizer on the surface. 

When the stabilizer is removed in different areas it 

creates a dye specific area. Essentially the embroidery 

combined with the removal of the special stabilizer in 

different areas is creating an embroidery stencil. 

Like many forms of stencils on plastic materials, the 

embroidery itself becomes the stitch out pattern for the 

stencil. And the stabilizer with its repellency during the 

dye process prevents the dye from penetrating specific 

areas of the embroidery. 

As you’ll see later in the steps, of creating these blocks, 

the sky really is the limit to endless possibilities. 

If you wanted to experiment with rubber bands and tie 

specific areas of the embroidery, or background fabric, 

or fade areas using bleach and water method, the 

effects are very interesting. 

The theme of this project is fabric dyeing. 

Different fabric types are affected in the dye process. 

Depending on the composition of the animal, plant or 

synthetic fibres, each one reacts differently. Some fabrics 

have to be saturated longer than others, or additional 

applications of spray or soaking may be necessary. 

It’s very important when selecting the dye to read and 

follow all manufacturer’s instructions. 

As mentioned in previous articles, it’s important to 

remember that a mix of assorted fabrics gives surface 

interest, and in this case cotton is used, but silks, linens, 

wools, or synthetics, can all be dyed. Embroider a lace piece 

to co-ordinate and dye it to co-ordinate or contrast with 

your artistic piece. 

Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 79

PFAFF ® provided the following sewing 

machine and products to make the sample: 

PFAFF® creative sensation pro II sewing 

and embroidery machine 

PREMIER+ ULTRA Embroidery Software 

Design by PFAFF® Holiday Line Art Collection #477 

INSPIRA® Stabilizers 

INSPIRA® Machine Needles 

INSPIRA® Scissors 

Robison-Anton® Embroidery Threads 

Sulky Threads® 

Hoops 

Photo courtesy of PFAFF 

skill level expert 


19” x 33” [48.5 x 84cm] 

materials 

fabric 

• 2 jelly roll strips solid cotton 

• 2 jelly roll batik cotton print to coordinate 

with theme 

• 2 batik and 3 solid cotton fat quarters 

for dye process 

• 20” x 34” [51x 86.5cm] cotton batik 

backing piece cut to size of completed 

front 

sewing feet used 

• embroidery foot 

• perfect ¼” foot with guide 

• bi-level topstitching foot 

• general sewing foot 

• adjustable guide foot for IDT system 

cutting tools 

• rotary cutter 

• cutting mat 

• INSPIRA® Scissors 

embroidery requirements 

PFAFF® Embroidery Collection Holiday 

Line Art #477 

needles 

• New INSPIRA® microtex needle size 90 

• New INSPIRA® embroidery needle size 

80 or 90 

threads 

• 40wt Robison-Anton® rayon thread for 

machine embroidery and decorative 

sewing 

• Sulky ®cotton blendables 30wt for 

construction 

• All-purpose thread for construction 

stabilizers 

• 1 piece of Stabilizer Fast & Easy Tear 

Away for decorative stitches and 

embroidery 

• INSPIRA® Aqua Magic stabilizer for 

embroidery 

• INSPIRA® Clear N’ Melt stabilizer for 

embroidery stenciling 

other 

• creative Quilters Hoop 200 x 200 

• extension table for your machine 

• assorted trims ¼” wide 

• marking tools 

• SINGER® Steam Press 

• Hot Touch tool and mini iron with 

assorted accessory ends 

• assorted buttons, hot touch crystals 

• grosgrain ribbon wide for ribbon 

technique background and 1⁄8” ribbon 

for technique in assorted colours 

• 1pkg. Dylon Fabric Dye for hot water 

dyeing 

• rubber gloves 

• spray bottle 

• newspapers or cardboard 

Q 

80 .com 

| issue 8 

UILTsocial

Front piece: down arrows indicate folded 6” and 4” cotton printed squares, 6 in total. Side arrows indicate solid and batik strips as in diagram. 

g 

g 

g 

g 

g 

Embroidery 

Embroidery 

Embroidery 

g 

g 

instructions 

Preparation steps 

It’s also important to measure the 

intended body pillow, or create a size that 

can be used for a multitude of pillow sizes 

to include standard sizes. 

1. Prewash and dry your fabrics if desired. 

2. Creating your pattern using INSPIRA® 

Tear N’ Wash stabilizer with graph is 

always great if you need a pattern 

guide. Adjust your pattern according 

to the size of your body pillow. 

3. The front and back of this pillow wrap are 

different. The front is using an assortment 

of cotton blocks exploring fabric dye 

techniques. The back is one large batik 

piece to co-ordinate with front. 

Cutting 

Pillow Wrap Front 

16” x 16” from each 3 solid white cotton fat 

quarters for machine embroidery 

(4 – 6” x 6”) and (2 – 4” x 4”) from 2 printed 

cotton fat quarters 

3 – 16” x 16” INSPIRA® Aqua Magic pieces 

3 – 16” x 16” INSPIRA® Clear N’ Melt pieces 

Borders 

4 – 2” x 11” cotton strips for sashing 

2 – 2½” x 34” batik for outside border 

2 – 2½” x 34” solid for inside border 

Back Piece 

Cut to the size of the pillow front when 

complete. 

Front Piece 

Note: Technique blocks are cut to size after 

the techniques have been completed. 

Machine Embroidery 

1. Layer the INSPIRA® Aqua Magic 

stabilizer, and 16” x 16” Cotton on 

top of that layer. Then add a layer 

of INSPIRA® Clear N’ Melt on the top 

of the cotton and hoop. Load the 

desired embroidery design. In this 

case it’s PFAFF® Holiday Line Art 

Collection #477. You may choose to 

pick a built in embroidery design. 

2. Always look at your embroideries and 

decide which suits the theme. 

3. Thread the machine with white cotton 

30wt thread and 60 wt bobbin thread. 

The cotton thread will easily dye with 

the cotton fabric. 

4. Explore the placement of the 

embroidery. 

5. Placement of the embroidery onto the 

white cotton fabric is a personal choice. 

6. Embroider the snowflakes or trees or 

design of choice on each block. There 

will be 3 blocks. 

7. This block measures 16” x 16” at 

the start, but will be cut to 14” x 14” 

after embroidery and dyeing. The 

embroidered block was cut larger 

originally to have more area to explore 

the preferred dyed surface area. 

Embroidery using Clear N Melt 

Embroidery with Clear N Melt 

Instruction photos this page by Cheryl Stranges 

.com Q 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 81

Details of the quilt blocks 

Embroidery Stencil Preparation 

1. When embroidery is complete 

remove the embroidered fabric from 

the hoop. Decide which areas on the 

embroidered piece you would like to 

dye. Tear away the INSPIRA® Clear N’ 

Melt from those areas. It can also be 

trimmed away or melting away with 

the hot touch tool in intricate areas. If 

you have a choice of tips for your hot 

touch tool, choose a tip that is closest 

in size to the design area for stabilizer 

you’re melting away. Stilettos are great 

for pulling it up out of small areas. 

This stabilizer tears away quite easily. 

Just hold the fabric on the stitches to 

support them and then tear upwards 

quickly. When finished the stabilizer 

should only be left on areas, that you 

don’t want the dye to penetrate. 

2. On this specific project, the outer 

boundaries of the embroidery design 

were removed for the dyeing process 

and any areas where light colour is 

visible is essentially where the Clear 

N’ Melt was left behind. There are 

hot touch tools available crystal 

applications and embellishment and 

mini irons for appliqué. Either of these 

tools work for the melt away stabilizer. 

Follow manufacturer’s instructions for 

using them. 

Dye Preparation 

1. Using the dye packet instructions, 

follow the water temperature 

information. Wear Rubber gloves 

for all of dye procedure and 

rinsing procedure. 

2. Boil water in kettle and mixed it in 

an open container with dye and 

manufacturer’s recommendations 

of adding salt. Use water amount in 

relation to size of project. 

3. Work in an area that’s totally covered 

with newspaper or aany absorbent 

material that will take on the extra 

dye as it’s sprayed. Use multiple 

layers of newspaper to prevent any 

dye from bleeding through onto the 

work surface. 

4. Let the dye cool. And then add it to 

the spray bottle. This project was 

done outdoors but can easily be 

done indoors as well. Have a test 

sample piece to test the spray bottle 

and dye application on the fabric. 

Let the dye sit for about 10 minutes. 

Spray again if needed in areas. When 

happy with the result of the test 

piece proceed to spray the dye onto 

your embroidered fabric blocks using 

the same method. 

Note: The dye application will be lighter than 

it appears once the block is rinsed and dry. 

5. It’s possible that the dye does 

not completely penetrate the 

embroidered area with the stabilizer 

on top. There may be muted colour 

in these areas, which adds interest, 

and the cotton thread colour 

that was used for embroidery has 

absorbed the colour of the dye. 

6. Rinse each block until the water 

turns clear. At this point the INSPIRA® 

Aqua Magic Stabilizer washes away. 

The reason we use INSPIRA® Aqua 

Magic water soluble stabilizer is to 

not only stabilize the embroidery, but 

it doesn’t trap the dye between the 

layers. It rinses away and so does the 

excess dye. 

7. Let each block dry. The blocks can be 

hung to dry or laid on a surface that 

has something to protect the surface. 

Maybe an old towel that you no 

longer plan to use. 

Assembling the blocks 

1. When the blocks are completely 

dry, press the embroidered fabric 

blocks according to stabilizer 

instructions and the stabilizer will 

melt away. Simply brush away the 

stabilizer off of the surface. This also 

helps set the colour. 

2. Wash the blocks with mild detergent 

and dry flat or hang dry. 

3. Cut the blocks to 14” x 14” or desired size. 

4. Fold each of the 6” cotton print 

blocks in half diagonally to form 

triangles and place them into 

desired corners of each embroidered 

block with the fabric fold facing 

the embroidery. Pin into position. 

Some blocks were cut smaller at 4” x 

4” and folded to accommodate the 

large snowflake shape. However this 

depends entirely on the size of the 

chosen embroidery. Cut them to the 

desired size. 

5. Add the sashing pieces between 

the blocks, right side of sashing to 

Q 


UILTsocial

ight side of block and using ¼” seam 

allowance, and the perfect quarter 

inch foot with guide stitch each 

sashing to block. The PFAFF® IDT 

feeding system works tremendous 

well for piecing. 

Decorative Stitches 

1. Cut desired length strips of the trim, 

and on this project ¼” Battenberg 

lace tape was used to decoratively 

stitch the small snowflake stitches 

onto the lace. You will find many 

beautiful decorative stitches that 

work well with this technique. 

2. Tear away stabilizer was also used 

underneath the lace tape. Choose 

the desired stitch. Adjust the 

length and width of the stitches 

to accommodate the width of the 

lace. 40wt rayon thread was used to 

decoratively stitch each strip with a 

60wt bobbin thread. 

3. When the stitches are complete, tear 

away the excess stabilizer. Using a 

fusible tape, place strips into the 

desired areas of the projects, in this 

case the sashings. 

4. Press and fuse them into position, 

and follow this with a straight stitch. 

Another choice may be to fuse the 

lace first to the project and then 

stitch the decorative stitch. Both 

applications work well. It’s always 

wonderful to create your own trim 

and add it to any desired project. 

5. This trim was added to the outer 

border, and the sashing in the middle 

of the project. This trim can also be 

dyed to desired colours as it is cotton 

and absorbs dye very well. 

6. Continue sewing all pieces together, 

to include borders. Use your perfect 

¼” foot with guide if you choose 

straight stitching. 

7. Use a grass-like decorative stitch 

and a stabilizer backing stitch black 

borders for embellishment. 

8. If you’re stitching decorative stitches 

change to a decorative stitching 

foot. The opening in the foot is 

much larger and the foot has been 

designed specifically for decorative 

stitching on the underside. 

9. Stitch free motion on pieces with 

quilt batting in areas of interest 

using decorative thread. There are a 

number of free motion feet available 

to do this step. Or choose to use 

channel quilting, decorative stitches 

sporadically or leave the wrap as it is. 

10. Clean up and trim all edges of the 

pillow wrap front using cutting tools. 

Ribbon Stitches 

1. Single and double ribbon stitches are 

a beautiful addition to any project. 

A double ribbon stitch was used 

with two different colours of narrow 

ribbons, and stitched on a wide piece 

of grosgrain ribbon, and a tear away 

stabilizer was used behind the ribbon. 

2. When this ribbon stitching is 

complete, tear away the stabilizer, 

and then add the additional 

Battenberg lace trim all around the 

edges to frame the ribbon stitches. 

This is in turn stitched to the border 

of the wrap. 

3. Choose a single or double ribbon 

stitched across the entire border 

directly onto the fabric as well. Using a 

tear away or cut away stabilizer yields 

great results. 

4. Embellish the wrap with buttons and 

hot touch crystals. 

5. When the front of the Embroidery 

Stenciled pillow wrap is complete, 

proceed to cut the back fabric the 

same size. 

6. Place them right sides together and 

stitch a seam down each long edge. 

7. Press and fold under each short end 

twice approximately ½” with each fold. 

8. Stitch using a straight stitch along each 

side and a Bi-level topstitching foot. 

9. Choose to stitch on the right side or 

the wrong side of this hem. 

10. Turn right side out. Basically it’s a large 

tubular piece. 

11. Insert the body pillow inside the wrap. 

Cheryl Stranges 

Product & Event Specialist, Husqvarna Viking 

husqvarnaviking.com 

seecherylsew.blogspot.com 

Auditioning corner pieces 

Decorative stitches on trim 

Decorative grass like stitch on border 

Decorative stitches around ribbon stitches 

Instruction photos this page by Cheryl Stranges 

Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 83

Quilted Hand Muff 

Hand muffs are a vintage item. But if you 

think about it, there could be times when 

you’re sitting in a chilly arena, outdoor 

skating rink, watching people skiing down 

the hills or maybe you enjoy the outdoors, 

sitting admiring the winter view? Then, the 

hand muff could be useful again. This hand 

muff has sewn-in Therm Fleece and pockets 

to accommodate hand warmer products like 

Grabber Warmers®, for extra warmth, to 

keep your hands toasty warm. 

Another benefit of making this project 

is that it's an easy pattern with straight 

seams giving the opportunity to learn how 

to sew using Therm Fleece and Stitch-N- 

Steam products. These products can be 

used on other sewing projects, like a tea 

cozy or anything that needs insulating. 

Furthermore, the Stitch-N-Steam can be 

used on quilted items as well as fibre art 

projects for an easy textured effect. 

skill level Intermediate 


13” x 16½” (circumference) [33 x 42cm] 

materials 

• Fabric 1 – 29½” [75cm] cotton 

• Fabric 2 – 20” [50cm] cotton for pockets 

• 19” x 22” [48 x 56cm] Stitch-N-Steam 

• 14” x 16” [35.5 x 40.5cm] Therm Fleece 

• 14” x 16” [35.5 x 40.5cm] quilt batting 

• 10” x 16” [25.5 x 40.5cm] quilt batting 

• Dress It Up Snow Flake buttons 

• 19mm slide for strap 

suggested notions 

• Gütermann Sew All polyester thread 

• Sulky Sliver Metallic color 8040 

• 30 wt Sulky Cotton Blendables thread for topstitching 

• Quilting Ruler 6” x 24” 

• Komfort 45mm cutter 

• Heirloom Air-erasable marker 

• Kai Scissors 4½” 

• Glass Head Pins 

• Universal needle size 80/12 

• Topstitch needle size 90/14 

• 505 Temporary Adhesive or Sulky KK2000 

• Clever Clips 

Donna Housley & Cathy McClean 

www.hakidd.com 

Q 


UILTsocial

instructions 

Cutting 

Fabric 1 

Cut 1 – 19” x 22” (outer layer) 

Cut 1 – 14” x 16” (lining) 

Cut 1 – 2” x WOF (strap) 

Cut 1 – 2” x 8” (strap) 

Fabric 2 

Cut 1 – 16” x 20” (inner pocket) 

Creating Textured Fabric 

A textured fabric gives a special touch to 

many projects. Add depth and richness to 

the project by using specialized thread. 

Machine set up 

Sewing Foot: Regular Sewing foot 

Thread: Metallic or decorative thread on 

top, polyester invisible or bobbin thread 

in bobbin (such as Sulky) 

Needle: Topstitch size 90/14 

1. Pin Stitch-N-Steam to back of 19” x 22” 

outside fabric. Using approximately a 

3mm stitch length randomly sew lines 

all over fabric. Lower the top tension 

to ensure a smooth stitch. Sew as 

many or as few lines as desired. The 

closer the lines are to each other the 

finer the texture of the finished fabric. 

Photo 1 

Photo 1 

Note: When using metallic thread 

remember that it is flat and needs to 

come straight off the spool to avoid 

twisting. Use a vertical spool pin or feed 

the thread up through a thread tree. 

2. Place the finished fabric right side 

down on an ironing surface. Using 

steam, steam the entire area of Stitch- 

N-Steam without touching the iron 

to the fabric. Let the steam do the 

work of shrinking the Stitch-N-Steam. 

3. Trim textured fabric to 14” x 16”. 

Instruction photos courtesy of Donna Housley 

Inner Pocket 


Sewing Foot: Regular Sewing foot or ¼” 

foot 

Thread: Gütermann Sew All thread top 

and bobbin 

Needle: Universal size 80/12 

1. Fold 16”x 20” fabric in half right sides 

together to get a 10” x 16” rectangle. 

Place 10” x 16” piece of batting on 

top of pocket fabric. Use a small 

amount of basting spray to hold layers 

together if necessary. With a ¼” seam 

stitch the long side. 

2. Turn right side out and press. 

3. Top stitch both 16” sides. 

Strap 

1. Fold each strap in half lengthwise 

right sides together and sew long 

edge to create a long tube. Turn right 

side out and press. 

2. Turn under raw edges at one end of 

the long strap and topstitch. 

Lining 


Sewing Foot: Regular Sewing foot 

Thread: Sulky 30 wt Blendable Cotton top 

and bobbin 

Needle: Topstitch size 90/12 

1. Lay 14” x 16” quilt batting on table. 

Place 14” x 16” lining right side up on 

top of batting. Use basting spray to 

hold layers together. 

2. Center pocket on top of lining. Use an 

air erasable marking pen to draw lines 

down the center both horizontally 

and vertically. Topstitch on these lines. 

3. Insert short strap through slider. 

Fold strap in half lengthwise 

matching raw edges. 

4. Position straps: Using the lines drawn 

in step 2 place the raw edges of 

straps on the line drawn on one of 

the 16” sides. Baste in place. Place the 

raw edge of long strap in the center 

of the opposite side of the lining. 

Baste in place. The straps will now 

be laying across the pockets. Roll up 

excess strap and pin or clip to ensure 

it doesn’t get caught up when sewing 

the muff together. 

Assembly 

Make a sandwich 

1. Lay lining and pocket right side up. 

2. Place 14” x 16” textured fabric on top 

right side down. 

3. Place Therm Fleece shiny side up on 

top of textured fabric. 

4. Pin and sew one 16” side through all 

layers. 

5. Lay muff open with right sides facing 

up. The textured fabric and Therm 

Fleece will be on one side and the 

Photo 2 

Photo 3 

lining and pocket on the other side. 

Fold in half; right sides together 

matching textured fabric to textured 

fabric and lining/pocket to lining/ 

pocket. The piece is 28” long and 8” 

wide. Pin the long edge and stitch 

with a ¼” seam backstitching at the 

beginning and end of the seam. 

Photos 2 and 3 

6. Fold the textured fabric back 

and over the lining and pocket, 

creating the muff. Turn under raw 

edges ½” (making sure that the 

strap isn’t caught inside) and clip 

the edges together. 

TIP 

With all of the batting and Therm Fleece it's 

much easier to use clips instead of pins. 

7. Topstitch around edge making sure 

all layers are sewn. Topstitch the other 

end of the muff to match. 

8. Embellish muff with Snowflake Dress 

It Up buttons. Thread long strap 

through slider and adjust the length. 

Insert 2 or 4 heat packs into the 

interior pockets and enjoy the warmth 

after a cold day on the slopes. 

Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 85

BUSINESS DIRECTORY To list your business in this space please call 1.866.969.2678. 

Brenda Franklin Designs 

7570 Mapleton SR 18 RR 1, Alma, ON N0B 1A0 

519.638.9958 bfdesigns.on.ca 

help@bfdesigns.on.ca 

More than 500 charts available for counted 

needlework, latch hook rugs, beadwork, beaded 

knits and knitting patterns. Mail/fax order or ask 

for our products at your local shop. Contact us for 

custom designs or needle felted sculpture. 

Brampton Sew & Serge 

289 Rutherford Rd S, Unit 7, Brampton, ON L6W 3R9 

905.874.1564 sewnserge.com 

monique@bramptonsewnserge.com 

Welcome to Your One Stop Sewing Centre! We are 

authorized dealers of Baby Lock, Husqvarna Viking, 

and Singer sewing machines and sergers. We also 

offer a full schedule of sewing classes for everyone. 

Bytowne Threads - Ottawa, ON 

1.888.831.4095 bytownethreads.com 

mlj@bytownethreads.com 

Featuring AURIfil® thread from Italy. Extra-long 

staple Egyptian cotton threads: 12wt, 28wt, 40wt & 

50wt - 252 colours. Bobbin threads, black & white: 

60 and 80wt. Polyester threads 240 high-sheen 

colours. Wool threads 180 colours. 

Country Concessions 

1 Dufferin St, Cookstown, ON L0L 1L0 

705.458.4546 or toll-free 1.888.834.4407 

countryconcessions.com 

quilting@countryconcessions.com 

Visit our lovely and unique quilt shop in the quaint 

village of Cookstown. We have over 7000 bolts of 

cotton fabrics plus a wide selection of patterns, books 

& notions. You will be so glad you came for a visit. 

Evelyn's Sewing Centre / The Quilt Store 

17817 Leslie St, Unit 40, Newmarket, ON L3Y 8C6 

905.853.7001 or toll-free 1.888.853.7001 

thequiltstore.ca 

Evelyn's Sewing Centre in Newmarket is your Quilt 

Store Destination! The staff here at Evelyn's is always 

on hand to provide Quilt Wisdom, Quilt Inspiration 

and most of all we pride ourselves as the place to 

make... All Your Quilt Dreams Come True! 

Gitta's 

271 Lakeshore Rd E, Mississauga, ON L5G 1G8 

905.274.7198 gittas.com 

questions@gittas.com 

Gitta's, named after owner Gitta Al-Basi, nestled in 

the east village of Port Credit, is the place where 

stitchers meet with their stitching friends, shop for 

stitching supplies and see the new stitching designs 

from Europe and the United States. 

Hardanger House 

4708 52 St, PO Box 1223, Stettler, AB T0C 2L0 

403.742.2749 or toll-free 1.866.742.2749 

tnplisting.com/hardanger-house.html 

Patterns from Canadian, American and European 

designers, linen and evenweave fabrics from Zweigart, 

DMC pearl Cottons, Caron Collection threads, and 

all the related stitching accessories are kept in stock. 

Many additional items can be special ordered. 

Haus of Stitches 

626 Main Street, Humboldt, SK S0K 2A0 

306.682.0772 or toll-free 1.800.344.6024 

hausofstitches.ca 

Our one of a kind store offers everything you need 

for sewing, quilting, knitting, rug hooking and 

needlework. Authorized dealers for Janome and 

Elna. 

Impressions Embroidery & Engraving 

#8-449 Mayor Magrath Dr S, Lethbridge, AB T1J 3L8 

403.942.3934 impressionslethbridge.ca 

impressions22@shaw.ca 

Our shop does embroidery and laser engraving. 

Laser engraving is a beautiful process for fabric, 

as nothing cuts cleaner and more precisely than a 

laser. We now carry a nice array of fabric as well to 

compliment the abilities of the laser. 

Joyce's Sewing Shop 

325 Wortley Rd, London, ON N6C 3R8 

519.433.5344 joycessewingshop.com 

joycesewingshop@bellnet.ca 

Our mission is to make sewing fun by providing 

professional training to teach the benefits of sewing, 

to provide excellent service and quality products 

to make your sewing easier and to provide friendly 

customer service to make you a happy sewer. 

My Sewing Room 

148-8228 MacLeod Trl SE, Calgary, AB T2H 2B8 

403.252.3711 mysewingroom.ca 

Queenofeverything@mysewingroom.ca 

Canada's Largest Independently Owned Quilting 

Store with fabric, patterns, kits, notions, sewing 

machines and more! My Sewing Room boasts over 

10,000 bolts of 100% cotton fabric from designers 

and manufacturers from around the world. 

Needles & Knits 

15040 Yonge St, Aurora, ON L4G 1M4 

905.713.2066 needlesandknits.com 

Fabulous selection of yarns. Extremely 

knowledgable and expert help. Cozy and friendly 

atmosphere. Classes. Guild night every first Tuesday 

of the month. Tea with Tove, the owner, every 

Thursday from 6-8pm. 

Pine Ridge Knit & Sew 

17477 Hwy 2 PO Box 68, Trenton, ON K8V 5R1 

613.392.1422 pineridgeknitsew.com 

yvette@pineridgeknitsew.com 

We have knitting machines by Artisan and Silver 

Reed, embroidery machines by Husqvarna/Viking 

& White. Sewing notions and supplies, books and 

software. Hands-on lessons and classes. Wide variety 

of yarns, threads, dress and pant zippers. 

Rosalie I. Tennison, Quilt Appraiser 

Certified by American Quilters’ Society 2005 

Newmarket, ON 

905.953.1441 R.Tennison@sympatico.ca 

What if something happens to your treasured quilt? 

Do you have written proof of its value for your 

insurance company? Get an appraisal now. 

Ruby Pearl Quilts 

500 King St W, Suite 8, Oshawa, ON L1J 2K9 

905.436.3535 rubypearlquilts.com 

joy@rubypearlquilts.com 

We are your full service source of professional quilting 

equipment, products, & courses. Led by 44 years of 

sewing experience & more than 20 years of quilting 

experience, we have the experience necessary to help 

you push your hobby to the next level! 

Ruti's Needlebed 

10 Thomas St, Mississauga, ON L5M 1Y5 

905.821.9370 ruti.ca 

Mississauga's Finest Quilting and Knitting Store!! 

Come see our huge selection of yarn, fabric, supplies, 

sewing machines and knitting machines…a local 

store for all your quilting, sewing, knitting needs! We 

offer a wide variety of classes. 

The Yarn Guy 

15 Gower St, Toronto, ON M4B 1E3 

416.752.1828 or toll-free 1.800.836.6536 

theyarnguy.com info@sewknit.ca 

See us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter! 

Knitting machines, sewing machines, repairs, parts 

for Passap, Studio, Singer, Silver Reed, Superba, 

White. Sewing notions and supplies, books, ball 

yarns, coned yarns, TAMM yarns, Paton's yarns, 

Bernat yarns, Phentex yarns, Bernat kits & crafts. 

Sew Fancy Inc. 

Guelph, ON 

519.824.4127 sewfancy.com 

sales@sewfancy.com 

Your Premier Canadian Source for Specialty Sewing 

Supplies including Smocking, Heirloom Sewing, 

Goldwork, Silk Ribbon Embroidery, Needle Tatting, 

Swarovski Crystals, Sashiko, Quilting and more. Visit 

the website for the latest in sewing supplies. 

Stitch-It Central 

189 Thames Street S, Ingersoll, ON N5C 2T6 

519.303.1563 

stitchitcentral.ca sales@stitchitcentral.ca 

Stitch-It Central is a store to satisfy all your cross 

stitching needs. We have everything such as 

notions, books & magazines, project kits, charts, 

gift collections & certificates, papers & accessories, 

fabrics and linens, and so much more. 

That Sewing Place 

16610 Bayview Ave #10, Newmarket, ON L3X 1X3 

905.715.7725 thatsewingplace.ca 

jaret&liana@thatsewingplace.ca 

Introducing That Sewing Place as your sewing 

source and Authorized Dealers for Bernina and 

Brother machines. Jaret & Liana focus on placing 

your sewing needs first, providing outstanding 

support, service, and training. 

The Stitching Corner 

#2, 185 First St E, Cochrane, AB T4C 2E9 

403.932.3390 stitchingcorner.ca 

nygabe@telus.net 

Your Needlework Shop in Cochrane. 

The Stitcher's Muse 

99 Commercial Street, Nanaimo, BC V9R 5G3 

250.591.6873 thestitchersmuse.com 

info@thestitchersmuse.com 

A divine little shop with supplies for all your hand 

stitching needs! Friendly, knowledgeable, helpful 

staff. Cross stitch, canvaswork, needlepoint, 

embroidery, counted thread, lace making and 

more. Books, patterns, fabric, threads, tools. 

Ultimate Sewing Centre 

191 Bloor St East, Oshawa, ON L1H 3M3 

905.436.9193 ultimatesewing.com 

ultimatesewing@bellnet.ca 

For all your sewing needs be sure to call Durham’s 

largest one stop shop: Janome and Elna Sewing 

Machines, Sergers, & Embroidery machines, 

over 3000 bolts of first quality cottons, Floriani 

Embroidery supplies, the latest notions, books, & 

patterns, year round classes, and so much more! 

Upper Canada Quiltworks 

PO Box 64, Brockville, ON K6V 5T7 

613.345.3956 Fax: 613.342.3327 

uppercanadaquiltworks.com 

Visit us online for a wide selection quilt patterns 

and books. Techniques include felted wool, fusible 

appliqué, punchneedle, rag quilting and printing 

photos on fabric. 

Q 


UILTsocial

QUILTsocial bloggers 



Christine has been designing and 

publishing quilt patterns for the 

last 10 years under the business 

name Fairfield Road Designs. 

Her patterns range from fusible 

applique and piecing to felted wool 

applique and punchneedle. You can 

see all her patterns on her website. 


crazyquilteronabike.blogspot.ca 

Elaine made her first quilt at 

the tender age of 13. The urge 

to quilt resurfaced when her 

daughter moved from a crib. The 

rest is history – she now teaches 

several days a week, makes 

quilts on commission and quilts 

for others on the long-arm . 

Liana Kirkey 

thatsewingplace.ca 

Liana Kirkey is an educator and 

self-professed gadget-girl with 

35 years experience in the retail 

sewing industry. Her favorite 

sewing playground includes 

embroidery machines, digitizing 

software, machine accessories and 

presser feet. She currently works 

full-time at That Sewing Place in 

Newmarket, Ontario. 

Jean Boyd 

patternsbyjeanboyd.com 

Jean has been designing and 

publishing patterns since 1997. Her 

work has been published in several 

magazines across North America. 

Jean holds a Fiber Arts Certificate in 

quilting and has taught extensively 

throughout Canada, including six 

national Quilt Canada conferences. 

She was named "Canadian Teacher 

of the Year" in 2003 by the Canadian 

Quilters Association and has won 

numerous awards for her quilts. 

Jackie White 

jabotquilt.blogspot.ca 

Jackie is a quilter who loves quilting 

outside the box especially when it 

comes to 3D and embellishments. 

Her work has been published in 

books and magazines and she 

currently sits on the Board of 

Directors for the Canadian Quilters’ 

Association. When she's not in her 

studio, she's working as a Social 

Media Manager. 

Nancy Devine 


Nancy Devine is a devoted user 

and collector of remnants, scraps, 

and vintage buttons. She lives in 

Aurora, Ontario, and can often 

be found working on her latest 

project, and playing around with 

her vintage (and much loved) 

Bernina machine. Find more of 

her work and musings on her blog. 



Sarah loves to play with color and 

quilts are her playground! A selftaught 

quilter, She's been designing 

her own quilts for almost 20 years. 

She's inspired by happy fabrics, 

selvages, traditional blocks and 

nature. She's also a wife, mother, 

and elementary school teacher, and 

enjoy drinking coffee on my front 

porch in northern Ontario. 

Q 

.com 

UILTsocial 

| issue 8 87

Canada’s most trusted notions brand 

is getting a makeover! 

Our new UNIQUE ® brand packaging 

is as beautiful and practical 

as our ne products! 

Find all of your favourite UNIQUE ® Sewing and Quilting 

products in more alluring and informative packaging. 

With lifestyle images showing application suggestions 

and detailed instructional diagrams, it has never been 

easier to nd and use the products you need to make 

your very best work. 

Q 


UILTsocial 

Look for UNIQUE ® Sewing and Quilting products at your favourite 

fabric, sewing and quilting store!

QUILTsocial | Issue 08

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