How the laser light on the Brother BQ3050 saves time on prep work

Yesterday I showed you how to sew your own crazy quilt fabric, embellish it with decorative stitches and cut out house and sky shapes. So let’s put it all together to make a table runner.

Now I get to use another great feature of the Brother Innov-ís BQ3050 machine – the laser light guide.

Press the laser light button on the LCD screen. A red laser line shows on the fabric. By default, the laser light is in the middle, but it can adjusted to the right or left by pressing the + or – buttons.

For this project, the laser light should be in the center position.

• Place a white square over the top right corner of a crazy quilted rectangle, right sides together.
• Line up the laser line with the corners of a 2½” square.
• Stitch a diagonal line across the square, following the red laser line. Keep your eye on the line, not on the needle. Now there’s no need to draw a line before sewing. What a time saver!

• Cut off the extra fabric from the seam allowance. Usually, I just cut the extra fabric from the square, but because I’m using white fabric, the background fabric would show through, so I trimmed both layers.
• As you can see in the picture, I decided to make houses of different heights, so I just cut a bit off some of my 4″ x 6″ rectangles.

• Sew another white square on the other side of the house to finish the sky and create a roof for the house.

• Cut 6 – 4½” squares from white. Sew a square to the top of each house block.

• On a design wall, arrange the houses as desired.
• Cut 7 – 1½” x 10″ white strips.
• Sew 1 strip between each house and at each end. Because the houses are different heights, the house row will look something like this.

• Trim the row to the desired height. Mine ended up being 7½” high.

• Measure the length of your house row and cut a white strip 3½” x that length for the snow at the bottom.
• Cut a gentle curve along one long edge of the strip. Lay the curved section on top of the house row.
• Pin in place.

I used a blanket stitch from the character/decorative stitch group to top-stitch the snow in place, but you can use a different decorative stitch if you wish. There are lots to choose from on the Brother Innov-ís BQ3050 machine!

• Turn the row over and trim the excess house fabric from the seam.

Be sure and come back tomorrow to learn how to add the borders and use the MuVit dual feed foot that comes with the Brother Innov-ís BQ3050 machine to quilt the house table runner!