QUILTsocial Issue 17

Radiant Stitches on the performance icon
add joy to a baby quilt
The PFAFF performance icon is making
quick work of this project and giving me
so many opportunities to take creative
license with this quilt.
Mark the radiant lines
To get ready for the radiant stitches I
have to plan ahead. I marked the curved
lines for the stitches before I layered
and pinned the quilt together with the
backing and the batting. I used a glass
pie plate and the UNIQUE Quilter’s Fast
Fade marker to mark my lines.
Pie plate and UNIQUE Quilter’s Fast Fade marker
Prepare the quilt for quilting
With the label stitched into the backing,
I’m now ready to lay out the backing,
batting, and quilt top to pin baste them
together. I also cleaned the floor first!
To start quilting the quilt, I sewed in the
ditch of the vertical block seams with blue
thread. Then I went in the ditch of the
half-square triangles and sewed beside
both sides of the floating stitches. I did
all of the blue, then switched to green to
do the green areas and finally the white.
Once this grid of quilting was in place, it
was time to start the radiant stitches.
Quilt layers pinned on floor
Radiant stitches
Radiant stitches are in section 8,
Technique stitches, just like the floating
stitches. Select subsection 6 to view them
all in the Stitch menu. The Stitch menu
gives you details about stitches before
you select them including in this case,
instructions on how to stitch out radiant
stitches. This is how I knew I needed the
UNIQUE Quilter’s Fast Fade marker!
Once you’re done reading, touch LOAD
to bring your selected radiant stitch into
sewing mode.
The radiant stitches stitch out behind the
presser foot – making sure I turned the
fabric the right direction was the only
hard part of this process. And really, it
just meant I had to pay attention.
To use this technique, line up the needle
with the marked line and press the Start/
Stop button. When the machine stops,
turn the fabric and then press the button
again. When the machine completes the
stitch it stops again. Turn the fabric again
and line it up with the marked line. This
process repeats until the line is complete.
I used the Cut function button at the
end of a line so the machine could
secure the threads and snip them for me.
Stitching with a contrasting thread
helped me create the forest and
wilderness I was planning since I began
this stitching adventure.
I used as many radiant stitches as I
dared! I limited myself to three radiant
stitches in each quadrant. I played with
using thread that contrasted or blended
into the fabric color. I like to think I
created sunshine, rain, pine trees, birch
trees, flowers, snow (it happens in the
mountains!), and goldenrod (weeds
happen too!). See, I told you this was my
favorite stitch technique yet!
I was really anxious to try out the radiant
stitches on the PFAFF performance icon.
I had to basically make a quilt before I
could test out my ideas and I was so glad
to see them stitch out!
Radiant stitch instructions in Stitch Menu screen.
Start of radiant stitch row
Radiant stitch line almost complete
OUILTsocial | issue 17 43