PFAFF creative icon stitch creator lets you add oomph to a simple binding

Yesterday I showed you how to use the embroidery feature on the PFAFF creative icon to quilt the project I made with the wonderful Sleepy Sloth fabric collection from Northcott. Today, I’ll show you how the Stitch Creator helped me create a nice and quick binding. I only had two days to spend quilting while on vacation and four quilts to finish. I knew I could bring some of the quilts to the cottage for hand binding, but not all! So I decided to have at least one of the projects completely bound by machine. I’ll now show you my little tricks that make this binding look good!

Let’s start by stitching the binding onto the quilt. Usually, we stitch the binding on the top of the quilt so that we can hand finish onto the back of the quilt. But since I’m machine stitching all, I start by stitching the binding onto the back of the quilt and proceed to stitch it the exact same way as I would on the top. But just in case you’re unsure of what the “same way” is, here’s the description:

1

When stitching the binding onto the back of the quilt, I ensure that I stitch at a full ¼” as opposed to a scant. If you’re too close to the edge, your binding will not feel full when you touch it. It’s really important that it fits snuggly to the edge of your quilt to prevent a premature wear of the fabric. I also cut my strips to 2¼” and fold in half to ensure that it fits nicely.

2

I leave a 6” tail hanging, it will be useful to join the ends together. Using the PFAFF creative icon to bind my quilts makes this process fast and easy as I can install my binding using my regular ¼” foot and the integrated Dual-Feed technology. I get precision stitching. And since the creative icon has increased needle piercing force, it really goes through all the layers and I get a nice seam!

3

For great corners: I stop sewing and place my needle down when I reach ¼” from the edge of the quilt. Since I’m using the ¼” foot on the creative icon, I can easily spot that moment as we have red lines on our foot that shows the ¼” before and after the needle. So as soon as the edge of the quilt aligns with the red line on the front of the foot, I know it’s time to stop.

4

I rotate the quilt so that I can sew out of the quilt, stitching right until the end of the corner. Having the enhanced ergonomic design electronic knee-lift allows me to raise the presser foot while keeping my hands on the project, enabling me to rotate the quilt.

5

I then fold the unsewn tail of the binding, aligning it with the 45 degree seam and edge of the next side I’ll be stitching. You can finger press on the fold to ensure that it lays nice and flat. Fold the unsewn tail of the binding back onto the edge of the quilt and start stitching from the edge. Repeat for all four corners.

6

Stop sewing about 12” from where you began to stitch the binding. Bring the tail of the binding yet to be sewn over the start of the binding and cut off excess (to be safe, I cut passed the sewn portion). Lay the binding ends on the edge of the quilt and fold the excess of the unsewn tail back. At this point, I use the excess binding that I just trimmed off and align it open perpendicularly over the folded portion, at the edge of the other binding (see photo). And I cut off the excess.

7

I then twist the tail of the binding to be sewn towards the quilt while ensuring that the right side of the fabric faces up. I align the edge of the beginning binding perpendicularly (right sides together) and I sew diagonally (the same way I sew my strips of binding together). I double check that the length of the binding matches the length of the quilt and I cut off the excess, pressing the seams open. Once done, I stitch the binding onto the edge of the quilt.

So that’s how I usually sew a binding onto a quilt.

Usually, I finish by hand on the other side of the quilt. But for this project, I wanted to make something different which is why I stitched the binding onto the back of the quilt. I actually folded the binding onto the top of the quilt and used a decorative stitch on top to finish the binding. And I decided to create my own decorative stitch cause the creative icon lets me do it! Yes, I could have gone much fancier as it has more than 800 stitches but I didn’t have much time.

So I picked a design and incorporated it with the straight stitch and saved it on mysewnet cloud.

Then the machine prompted me to change the needle plate and foot! I love it when the machine reminds me before I go and break another needle! So I changed the needle plate and foot and removed the Integrated Dual Feed and began sewing the binding onto the quilt top. I simply had to fold my corners and switch my stitch to straight to be able to move in and out of the corners easily. Because I had saved my stitch on mysewnet cloud it was easy to go back to my own stitch design once I had made a corner. It really didn’t take long for the binding to be finished.

My quilt was quilted and bound in a day. That’s how quick and easy it is to bind a quilt using the stitch creator. This left me with another day of testing out the wonderful embroideries of the creative icon. Join me tomorrow, I’ll show you more fun quilting stuff!