Hemstitching, Mock Quilting Stitch, Quilting Exercise
17 Mar 1998
Hemstitching
Question:
Does anyone have some helpful hints on how to create something similar to a hemstitch on the 7570? I suspect that perhaps a twin needle with one being a wing needle? An older acquaintance would love to be able to create crocheted edging for flannel receiving blankets and for pillowcases. Years ago she had someone hemstitch them with a hemstitching machine so that she had the little “holes” to crochet through. I’m sure one of the wonderful Pfaffies has done this.
Actually, you can use stitch #01 on the 7570. It’s just the triple stitch. The stitch comes up in the center position, so just turnthe twin needle key on, and use a 100/16 twin needle that has a wing needle and a plain needle. The wing needle will be to the left. Fold up the hem on the wrong side by turning under 1/4″, and stitch so that the wing needle goes off the hem onto the pillow case or project and the other needle stitches through the hem. The bobbin thread will catch both threads, and cover the hem on the other side. Also, you might want to use a size 50 or even 80 thread so as not to fill in the holes the wing needle makes. Should work fine. BTW, this is pretty on a deep hem with no crochet through the hemstitch holes.
Glynda Black
BTW, I believe the stitch number for the triple stitch that you’d use for the hemstitching on the 1400 series Pfaffs is #4; on the 7500 series it’s #1. Also, this can be done with just a single wing needle and size 50 or 80 thread in top and bobbin.
———–
4-25-99
Quilting Design Question
L., here’s a little bit of help for you. Maybe the practicing machine quilters will fill in.
If you’re going to do a free motion stippling stitch, yes, use the feed dogs. DON’T use stitch #27 (7500 series) (163 on 1475) to do stipple stitching. If you look at that stitch and you know anything about stipple stitching, you’ll see that it’s way too small to use. I don’t know why Pfaff calls it a utility stitch. I use it for decorative work. If you stitch it, you’ll be stitching forever, and when you get through, your work will be a long matted strip–not what you want with a quilt.
You can tie off a line of stitching by simply moving the stitch length down really low, so that you have five or six very small stitches at the start and end of a line of stitching. Then bring the stitch length back up to normal. That way, you have no knots on the quilt, and yet the start and end of the stitching is unlikely to unravel.
Glynda Black =^.^=
————
04 Apr 1998
Mock Quilting Stitch
K., you have the right stitch (#11 on 7500 series). I’ll give you my thoughts on it, and perhaps others can give their thoughts on it. In my experience the upper tension on the invisible thread needs to be at or about 9 usually. The bobbin tension should be normal or perhaps a little loose, depending on the weight of bobbin thread you have. Stitch length should be set to 2.5-3 or so.
The only thing you didn’t mention which might make a difference is your needle. A Schmetz quilting needle helps a lot. If you don’t have that, you might try a slightly larger needle to make a hole through which the bobbin thread can come to the top a little easier. In some cases, you might need a smaller needle. It depends on your fabric and batting. Some quilt teachers have preferences here, but I find that experimentation on scraps of my quilt is the best way to determine what needle I need on this stitch.
Now, having done all that, remember that this is NOT going to look exactly like a hand quilting stitch. This is going to be a “mock” hand quilting stitch which from a distance of about 3 feet should look sort of like it was done by hand. The visible stitches will look a bit like knots up close. The visible stitches will be the triple stitches for which the bobbin thread will pull through to the top. It looks better away from it than it does up close.
The stitch may not be consistent. A lot depends on how you handle the stitching–feed the quilt smoothly and don’t jerk it. A lot also depends on how well the invisible thread pulls through the tensions. If it doesn’t work well coming off the horizontal thread dispensers on the machine, try putting it on a vertical thread cone thread holder behind the machine and bringing the thread up through the hole in the lid of the machine. Sometimes that helps.
Also, seldom will the very first stitch in a line be good. You may now and then have a stitch which seems to “miss.” That’s okay. That’s typical.
I think you’re expecting too much. We want it to be perfect, and the mock hand quilting stitch is seldom perfect. With practice it can look better, but don’t expect the impossible.
The main reason there are some inconsistencies in the way the stitches look is that the look of the stitch depends on the elasticity of the invisible thread. Sometimes a spool of it will be more elastic than others. Could be that you just got a spool without a whole lot of spring to it. Also, some machines just do this stitch better than others.
The biggest difference in the stitching is on the reverse side of the quilt. Don’t use it if the back bothers you.
Hope that helps.
Glynda Black
———–
04 Apr 1998
Quilting Stitch Exercise, Part I
For those of you who want to do just an ordinary straight stitch quilting design on your quilts, you can use the stipple stitch on the machine to make yourself one. This exercise uses the Pfaff software.
Now, this will be a continuously stitching quilting design in the stipple stitch fashion which would be useful for sections of border. This is *not* a design you can turn a corner with, unless you don’t mind stitching over what you’ve already done. You’d use the same thread in the needle and bobbin, and you’d use the feed dogs, but not the dual feed foot. Regular setup for machine quilting applies. The 1475, 7550 and 7570 Pfaffs can all use this design.
Here’s how. Bring into the PCD screen the stipple stitch. Go to Machine/Open Stitch Program #27 (7500 series) or #163 (1475); now while it is still selected in the screen, open the Maxi screen so that 9mm design is now in the Maxi screen. It is still selected, so go to Tools/New Pattern Size and set the width of the design in the dialog screen to 45mm (you can set it all the way to 60mm for this screen, but I’ve had better stitching results with the 45mm width). (Use the 45mm width for right now. We’ll use it again later.) Select proportional and okay. You’ll see the design widens to most of the screen width.
Now, the stitches are really angular and long, so while it’s still selected, go back to the Tools menu and select Stitch Length, and in the dialog screen set that to 2.5mm, “enter.” The new stitches pop into the pattern. You’ll notice, though, that the stippling would look mighty jerky stitched this way, so we need to round out the curves in the design. Deselect the pattern by clicking anywhere on the screen. Then choose the MOVE tool on the tool bar (4 arrows), and begin cleaning up the design. Find a flat place in the design that should be rounded, and click on one of the stitches and move it into position with the mouse cursor. Continue to do this throughout the design until you have the stippling looking pretty and rounded. When it’s finished, save the design, and send it to a P-memory. Stitch it from the P-memory with the #8 foot and no dual feed foot. It wouldn’t take the place of free motion stippling on the machine, but it does have some uses. It’s particularly good on narrow borders and stripes.
Now, do you want to try a block of stippling for a quilt? It’s so easy! (You people with the 1475 and 7550 can learn a lot from this exercise even if you can’t stitch it out, so go to the Machine Menu on PCD, and configure the machine for a 7570 and high transfer rate. You won’t put a thing in your machine, but we’re just faking the software out so that you can play with the exercise.)
Take the 45mm stippling design you just did for the maxi screen and bring it into the large 120mm frame embroidery screen. While it’s selected, click on the ROTATE tool in the tool bar, and at the bottom of the screen type in 90, for the number of degrees you want it rotated, and hit “enter.” You’ll see the design rotates to the left so that it lies against the left side of the screen. While it’s selected, use the MOVE tool and move it to the bottom of the screen. Note the size of the design at the bottom of the screen. It’s 45mm long and 106.7mm wide. We’re going to try to make this into a 106.7mm square.
While the design is selected and in this position, go to Edit/Copy (or hit ctrl-c) to copy the design, and then hit the lengthwise mirror tool in the toolbar or Length Mirror from the Tools menu. We’re just flipping the design over so that the start and end of the design are toward the right now. Hit “end” on the keyboard to deselect the design. Now, hit Edit/Paste (ctrl-v) to paste the copied design into the screen. Move the second repeat of the design while it’s selected out until the end stitch of the second repeat shows its coordinates as X370, Y640. (While the design is being moved, the last stitch’s coordinates are the ones you see changing at the bottom of the screen. In this case, since we’re moving it to the right, all you’ll see changing is the X coordinate.) Hit “enter” when you get it right to take it off the MOVE function. Look at the length and width of the design at the bottom of the screen. It should read 106.7 both ways.
However, do you notice how the design sort of resembles an ink blot? That’s not the prettiest stippling pattern, so let’s change that. As it is now, the start and end of the design are in the center top of the design. We are going to keep that but change the look of the design to one that looks more complicated.
Still keeping the repeat selected, hit the MIRROR tool in the toolbar or the Tools/Mirror option. The design will flip vertically, and there will be a long string between the two repeats. While it is still selected, choose the Tools/Flip Order command. The second repeat’s stitching sequence reverses, and you lose that long ugly string. Now the second repeat ends still at the top of the screen, but the two sides of the stippling stitch look different.
Part 2 is coming up.
Glynda Black
04 Apr 1998
Quilting Stitch Exercise, Part 2
Here’s Quilting Stitch Exercise, Part 2.
This exercise is a continuation of the one above and uses the Pfaff software.
Let’s connect these two parts of the design. Hit “end” on the keyboard to deselect the design and to put the highlighted stitch where we want it, at the end of the design. Select SET STITCH from the toolbar. Then add stitches to the end of the design until they meet the first stitch of the design. It looks better if you lay these additional stitches in, in a pattern in keeping with the stippling design. I put sort of a mitten shape between the two ends of the design. Be sure you work to the inside of the design. If you add stitches beyond where we have them now, the size of the design will be off. When you have the general shape of the added stitches the way you want it, highlight the added stitches, and go to Tools/Stitch Length, and set the length to 2.5mm if it’s not pretty close, and hit “enter.” If you’ve set them too close, the stitch length will read less than 2.5, and you should go back and delete some of those stitches to even out the stitching. You’d like all the stitches to be about the same size.
At the bottom of the screen where the two copies join, there is a long straight line. Add stitches in here the same way. Highlight the last stitch on the left before the second repeat and SET STITCHES in a stippling fashion, working to the inside of the design, until it meshes with the copied part of the design, and then change the stitch length on the added stitches as we did before.
It’s looking better, isn’t it? However, we still have a big gap right in the center of the screen. Here’s where you can have some fun. Find a “U” shape on the inside edge of the first repeat that is close to the gap at the bottom of the design. From one of the sides of that shape, SET STITCHES in a stippling fashion so that they go out into that area that is blank and creep over into the half of the design occupied by the second repeat. We’re meshing the two halves now. Don’t forget to highlight the added stitches and set the stitch length again to 2.5mm.
Now, do the same with the upper half of the gap, only this time SET STITCHES from a U side in the upper half of the second repeat of the design. If you didn’t move the design line into the very center of the block on the previous change, do so this time. There’s room for the design to wander into the center of the block as well as to creep into the left half of the block. Remember, make all the lines curvy and let it fill the gap so that the whole design looks evenly stippled. When you’re through, double check to be sure that you’ve changed the stitch length on all the added stitches to 2.5mm.
Now, the beginning of the design needs a tie-off, and so does the end, so add them. You can use three small stitches of various lengths which lie in line with the stitching direction. You’d go forward, back, forward with them over the same area and then go on to the stitching of the design. This isn’t as secure a hold as a “4″ or “star” shape tie-on, but it will do, and it won’t be as obvious either. I do think you need a tie-on for both ends, though. Don’t count making the ending overlap the start of the design and for that to hold it.
This design measures a little over 4″ square, so it will fit into a 5″ quilt block just fine. There will be some room around the edge for doing a 1/4″ quilting line all around the little square with the feed dogs later if you like. Or if you want the design to fit into a 4″ square, you should highlight the whole square and go to Tools/Change Pattern Size, and set the design size proportionally to probably 95 to 98mm. That will pretty well fill a 4″ square. The stitches will be a little smaller, but they won’t be too small to use. There won’t be room for a 1/4″ quilting line around the square in this case.
To stitch this, use fabric that is all cotton and a thin batting or even just flannel for a batting so that the hooping isn’t such a pain that you don’t want to do it. (You’re going to have a lot of hooping to do for a whole quilt if you use this design.) Carefully hoop the quilt “sandwich.” (You’ll have to loosen the hoop screw to do this.) Use the same thread in the needle and bobbin with the frame embroidery foot on and the feed dogs down. It’s probably easier to stitch sections of a quilt, rather than the whole thing when you are using the hoop on the machine. Doing a whole quilt this way will call for a lot of hooping, but it’s kind of fun for a small wall hanging.
I hope you enjoyed this little exercise and that you learned something about using the Rotate tool, the Set Stitch, Mirror, Length Mirror and Flip Order commands.
Glynda Black