Quilters can make buttonholes too with the PFAFF quilt expression 720

Time to try something new! In yesterday’s post, I started making quilted napkin rings using the Sequence program on the PFAFF quilt expression 720.

Now comes the fun part of turning the flat quilted fabric into a napkin ring by making a buttonhole.

You can sew buttonholes manually with the PFAFF quilt expression 720, but it also comes with the Sensormatic buttonhole foot which is what I tried out. This was the first time I made buttonholes – what a great way to learn a new sewing technique before the end of the year!

The PFAFF user’s manual that comes with the quilt expression 720 did a great job providing written instructions on how to set up the machine, and how to attach the buttonhole foot.

The foot clicks into place just like any other presser foot and then gets plugged in behind the automatic needle threader. I had to bend low and look up to see the spot, but it was easy to do.

The only trick to making sure the Sensormatic buttonhole foot was ready to do its job was to make sure the red arrow on the front lines up with the metal notch on the foot; there’s a diagram in the user’s manual to help figure this out.

I did a practice buttonhole with all three layers to make sure it would work. There’s a whole menu of different buttonholes to choose from – I just chose the first one. Then I stitched out on my napkin ring by lining up the red arrow just above my topstitching line. I used the Start/Stop button to let the machine do all the work – it actually goes up and down both sides of the buttonhole and sews the bar tacks at each end.

Then I needed to figure out how to cut the slit open! I used this video to show me a safe way to use my seam ripper to do this: How to safely cut a buttonhole with a seam ripper.

There’s a bit of excess in the slit because of the three layers of material; I found folding the fabric so the strings went through the wrong side of the hole was a better way to clip them and keep a clean finished look to the front of the buttonhole.

Make a buttonhole on each napkin ring then remove the Sensormatic buttonhole foot.

With a successful buttonhole in place, it’s time to add a button to the other end of the ring.

I went through my white and off-white button stash and found four of the same size buttons.

Select stitch 1.3.10 to sew on a button. Again the user’s manual was really helpful in showing and telling me how to set up the machine and to test that the needle would land inside the holes of the button by checking with the mirror side to side button.

Notice there’s no presser foot on the machine!

I folded the ring in half to figure out where to place the button, then I started sewing. Using the foot pedal caused the presser foot shank to come down and hold the button while the needle sewed it into place. Sew fun!

Of course, then I had to figure out a fancy way to fold a napkin to put in the ring! I found this video and gave it a try: How to Fold Napkins with Rings.

Ready to set the table in style this New Year’s! Making buttonholes with the PFAFF quilt expression 720 was a fun way to learn something new too.