Quilt-As-You-Go baby quilt with the PFAFF admire air 5000 Serger by Margaret Sweete July 9, 2025 written by Margaret Sweete July 9, 2025 25 On my first blog, I pieced a jelly roll quilt on the PFAFF admire air 5000, after figuring out how to set up the serger in my preferred seam allowance (a true ¼” seam). Yesterday, I pieced an I Spy charm pack quilt on the PFAFF admire air 7000. Today, I’m back on the PFAFF admire air 5000, already threaded with gray serger thread, set in a 4-thread wide overlock. PFAFF admire air 5000 serger set up for 4-thread overlock -wide with grey serger thread and the cloth guide attached. What would I need to do now, as you ask? Well, I will tell you, and this is very important, our sergers will stitch through anything (practically), but sometimes we can make it easier for ourselves and a better finish to use the settings we have on the serger. Today, I’m quilting using the quilt-as-you-go method, which means most of the time I’m serging through 2 layers of batting, and 4 layers of cotton fabric. I have the Presser Foot Pressure Adjustment on this serger, let’s use it! What this means is I test the many layers and adjust the Presser Foot Pressure until the fabric sandwich stitches through with a nice seam, and doesn’t ripple the fabric or require it to be pulled through. I found that my setting was almost maxed, as I had picked a cotton batt, the lightest one I could find. Once I have our serger set up, then it’s on to cutting. I found a few photos of baby quilts on Pinterest that I liked again, and I experimented with strip sizes (remembering that odd numbers look the best), until I found the combination I liked. Mine turned out to be 2½”, 4”, 8½” (finished strip widths) and repeat. For every strip, you need top fabric, bat, and backing fabric ALL cut the same (3”, 4½”, 9” selvedge to selvedge), cuts. Piles of fabric and batting laid out in order of use. It takes longer to cut all of this than to sew it together, dramatically longer! Start with the first sandwich (white print fabric, batting, and backing), with the fabric good sides out and the batting in the middle. I use Clover Wonder Clips to hold the layers in position. Serge one long edge. I then take it to the ironing board and press. I position the unserged edge flat along a line and take the 4½” blue strip and align the raw edges (good side down) on top of the white strip, and clip. Then, I take the batting and place it on top of the blue fabric, reclip. Turning the whole sandwich over, I position the blue flannel backing, good side down, on top of the pile, all the raw edges together. I now have a thick fabric sandwich, consisting of batting, blue batik, white print fabric, batting, blue flannel (the original first strip fabric sandwich), and the blue flannel, all clipped together with Wonder Clips. Note: It’s a personal preference which side the batting is added (to the front or to the back) in this Quilt-As-You-Go method (or Flip and Turn technique). I added mine to the front. Adding the 4th strip to the quilt, note the Clover Wonder Clips holding the whole 6 layers together, with all raw edges aligned and ready for serging. Continue to add strips in the pattern until you have them all used up (white-4, blue batik-4, print-3) and serge the top edge. Notes: You may encounter an excess of fabric or batting at the end of each seam. My batting and blue batik were extra long, and I just used scissors to roughly trim them. I pressed these seams so that the fabric/ batting lay flat for adding the next strip. All strips serged together in pattern, now to trim the left and right sides, removing all the selvedges. I have cut all my strips from selvedge to selvedge, so how wide will my quilt be?? After it’s all serged together, I need to trim the selvedges from the left and right sides. Your quilt width will be determined by the narrowest (width) fabric used. My white print was the smallest and had the widest selvedges. I ended up with a size of 40½” wide by 51½” long. Once these are all trimmed off, go back and serge the left and right sides. I had my entire quilt done, ready for binding in 90 minutes; it took twice to three times longer to cut, as I had to press all the prewashed fabrics (my choice) and then lay each strip good side up. This helps when you start piecing. The completed Quilt-As-You-Go Strip Quilt is ready for binding. Today, I created a Quilt-As-You-Go Strip Quilt using the PFAFF admire air 5000 serger, adjusting the presser foot pressure to allow the 6 layers (2 batting and 4 cotton fabric) to pass through with ease. Tomorrow, I return to the PFAFF admire air 7000 and do a unique runner with serged seams on the OUTSIDE! Join me! This is part 3 of 5 in this series Go back to part 2: Make an I Spy quilt fast with the PFAFF admire air 7000 Serger Go to part 4: Piecing a runner with decorative exposed seams on the PFAFF admire air 7000 Print this page or save as a PDF 0qs580baby quiltfast quilting techniquesfree quilting tutorialsPFAFF admire air 5000quilt as you goserger quiltingstrip quilting FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinRedditWhatsappTelegramThreadsBlueskyEmail Margaret Sweete Margaret Sweete has been working as a SVP Canada Freelance Educator representing SINGER®, HUSQVARNA® VIKING® & PFAFF® since 2007. Her creative passion started at the age of 10 utilizing her mom’s SINGER® sewing machine creating garments and quilting. Over the years, her interests expanded to include garment sewing, quilting and embroidery for personal use. This passion subsequently led her to learning more about the expanding sewing industry including new software and hardware technologies. Whenever Margaret travels, she seeks out classes, stores, textile museums and other inspirations to enrich her knowledge of fabric and sewing techniques for hand and machine use. This solid sewing comprehension was a natural fit for Margaret to become an Educator to share her extensive knowledge with others who have similar creative desires. She is passionate about sitting down with new hardware and software technologies and learning about their capabilities. Margaret is known for sharing her knowledge of this expanding sewing industry through exquisite and inspirational samples that show various techniques, sewing products and machines. Her classes will excite novice and veteran sewers and give them a solid basis to produce their own unique designs. She is able to take difficult concepts and help individuals be better able to utilize their own machines to their fullest potential. Some of Margaret’s original projects have been featured in “A Needle Pulling Thread” magazine. previous post Make an I Spy quilt fast with the PFAFF admire air 7000 Serger next post Piecing a runner with decorative exposed seams on the PFAFF admire air 7000 YOU MAY ALSO LIKE... Piece a vibrant jelly roll on the PFAFF... Leave a Comment Cancel Reply Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
