Doodling with My Custom Stitch on the Brother BQ3100

Yesterday I introduced you to the exclusive My Custom Stitch feature on the new Brother Innov-ís BQ3100 machine and demonstrated how easy it is to create your own custom stitch. Today we’ll have a look at how to use the custom stitches on the CD included with the machine, so you can create even more unique stitches.

The CD has 30 editable stitches

There are 30 additional stitches on the My Custom Stitch CD included with the machine. These stitches are another way to help you create your own stitch designs.

Retrieve one of the stitches from a USB stick or your computer (wherever you saved them from the CD). When you see the stitch on the LCD screen, you can edit it. Here’s the stitch I started with.

Custom stitch ready to be edited

Use the Point Delete key to erase lines on the design. I erased one of the design elements here.

One part of the stitch has been erased

I added some lines to the existing stitch to create another design.

Lines have been added to the existing stitch

You can see a preview of how the stitch will look on fabric.

Custom stitch preview

And here’s how my new stitch looks when I stitched it on fabric. I also experimented with changing the width and length of the stitches.

My custom designed stitch on fabric

Another way to create your own decorative stitch patterns is to use the Sideways and Directional Sewing group of stitches.

Sideways and Directional Sewing group of stitches

The Brother Innov-is BQ3100 machine sews straight and zigzag stitches not only forward and backward but sideways. In addition to sideways sewing, this machine also has the capability to stitch diagonally when using a straight stitch. This stitch group is perfect for trendy decorative mending, sewing patches on clothing, and for appliqueing small shapes without having to turn your fabric. But it can also be used for decorative stitching.

Here’s how I made my small sample. First, I drew some house shapes on fabric using a fabric marking pen.

House shapes drawn on fabric

Then I used sideways and diagonal stitching to roughly follow the drawn lines. Here’s how it looked when the drawing lines were removed.

Finished stitched houses

This sample was done just by choosing different angles of stitching lines. I never had to move or rotate the fabric. Itʼs like doodling on fabric!

Doodling on fabric

The Brother Innov-ís BQ3100 machine gives you so many ways to be creative with your sewing and quilting. I hope you’ll take some time to try some of these unique features. You᾽ll be surprised to see how artistic you can be!

This is part 5 of 5 in this series

Go back to part 4: Use My Custom Stitch to make your own custom stitch | Tutorial

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