Quilt and bind a runner with decorative seams on PFAFF admire air 7000

Yesterday, I pieced a runner with exposed seams on the PFAFF admire air 7000. Today, I’m quilting my runner with a chain stitch and then binding it on the serger!

I’m using the chain stitch to quilt this runner. Why? Because I can, it’s a small piece, and I can manage it on my serger extension table. I set it up in chain stitch using combinations of gray, black, and white threads. I also adjusted the thread tension and presser foot tension as needed. I’ll apply an organic style of quilting, which means that I’m stitching wavy, irregular lines from one narrow end to the other. Controlling the seams as I go so that they will lie flat in the direction I pressed them.

Notes:

• With chain stitch, you always start and end on fabric.
• With chain stitch, it unravels easily, so you need to start and end on the batting. Be careful when ending each line of stitching to avoid pulling out the thread. When you bind, you look at the stitches.

The above picture shows me quilting the runner with chain stitching, controlling the exposed decorative seams, in an organic wavy line. The picture below shows the back of the runner, highlighting the quilting lines to illustrate the organic technique.

When I was finished quilting the body of the runner, I should have quilted down the side edges of the fabric to control it; this would make the edge finishing easier (3-thread wide overlock stitch)

When I finished all the quilting, I took the runner to my cutting board and trimmed it, ready to bind. I set up the PFAFF admire air 7000 in a 3-thread wide overlock stitch (still set at ¼” seam) with gray thread. The 3-thread overlock stitch is an edge finish, and that is how I will prep my runner, as well as the first two quilts I made for this blog: the Jelly Roll quilt and the “I Spy” quilt, both of which are quilted (by the longarm) and trimmed. If my serger is set up in a 4-thread overlock instead of a 3-thread overlock, I will still use it. Stitch width only matters if you’re applying a narrow binding, like I will do on the runner.

The three quilts I made during this week, the Jelly Roll Quilt and I Spy Quilt, I prepped for binding with a 3-thread wide overlock, and the Striped Baby Quilt I finished the edge with a 4-thread wide overlock stitch. They will be bound on my PFAFF creative icon 2 using the double fold quilt binder (a ⅝” double fold binding). The runner I am going to do on the serger with a narrow binding like I do with small crafty projects.

I cut my binding at 2¼” diagonally, join the strips, and then press the double-fold binding in half lengthwise. I re-thread my PFAFF admire air 7000 in a 4-thread wide overlock stitch, using gray serger thread in the needles and upper looper; however, in the lower looper, I use Gütermann fusible thread (it’s white). This way, I can fuse the binding down after I stitch it!

Stitch the binding on the back, press the binding seam open, flip the runner over, press the binding down in place with lots of steam. This will activate the fusible lower looper thread.

Some people use this to finish the binding; others use it as a basting to hold the binding in place while you top stitch.

Note: If topstitching, match the thread in the needle to the binding on top, (black binding) and the bobbin thread to the backing fabric (white backing fabric).

In summary, This week, I worked with both the PFAFF admire air 5000 and the PFAFF admire air 7000 sergers. Showing different piecing techniques on both. I always finish my edge before binding on the serger (after quilting), preferably with a 3-thread overlock wide stitch, but in truth, it’s always a 3 or 4 thread overlock stitch (whichever stitch the serger is set up in) and whatever thread colour is loaded. It doesn’t matter what color of thread, as it’s always under my binding. Just taking this one step makes binding a breeze, regardless of your binding method. For quilts, I use the double-fold quilt binder on my PFAFF creative icon 2. For crafty projects, I can use the single fold quilt binder OR bind on the(any) serger, whatever I have out and working in my sewing room.

Note: You can bind on any serger using the above technique; however, you cannot chainstitch a quilt on a serger that doesn’t have a coverstitch feature.

Here are the finished quilts; join me next time for more exciting quilting and sewing machine tutorials.

This is part 5 of 5 in this series

Go back to part 4: Piecing a runner with decorative exposed seams on the PFAFF admire air 7000