Quilting using the Design Placement on the mySewnet App

Yesterday I embroidered the rose applique cushion top in one hooping on the PFAFF creative icon 2. I love using the 360 x 350 Grand Dream hoop for large designs like this and I’m so glad we have amazing features like Precise Positioning on the creative icon 2 to precisely line up both halves of the design.

Today I’ll demonstrate how easy it is to program buttonholes in the hoop and then use the free mySewnet App to position them on the back of my cushion. And, if buttonholes aren’t your thing, scroll down and see how amazing the mySewnet App works with quilt blocks.

Preparing the fabric

Before I can embroider my buttonholes, I need to get my back cushion fabric prepared.

Fuse the 13” x 22” fusible interfacing to the wrong side of the 13” x 22” main fabric and the 15” x 22” fusible interfacing to the 15” x 22” main fabric. Serge or finish one long edge on each piece.

Measure over 2” on each of the serged/finished edges, fold to the wrong side and press. I now have 1 piece that is 11” x 22” and 1 piece that is 13” x 22”.

I’ve set my creative icon 2 to Sewing mode and threaded the machine with sewing thread to match the main fabric on top and in the bobbin.

From the right side of the fabric, I’ve edge stitched along the fold.

I love using the laser Stitch Guides. I’m using the Laser Stitch Guide 1 with the horizontal position set to 30mm and Stitch Guide 2 to sew my second row of stitches 30mm from the edge stitching. Laser Stitch Guide 1 will ride along the edge stitching and Stitch Guide 2 shows where my second row of stitching will be on the cushion plackets.

Do this for both folded edges.

I’ve finished stitching the back cushion sections, so I’ve set my creative icon 2 back to embroidery mode with the 360 x 200 creative Deluxe hoop selected and the 6D Dynamic Spring embroidery foot attached. To stitch the buttonholes, I can leave my machine threaded with the sewing thread to match your main fabric.

Hooping the cushion back for embroidery

On the 11” x 22” back use a marking pencil/chalk and draw a line down the placket, centering it between the two stitched rows. Also, mark the horizontal center of the placket.

In the 360 x 200 creative Deluxe hoop, I’ve placed a piece of PFAF Tear Away White stabilizer.

I’ve hooped the cushion back with the center of the placket lined up with the vertical and horizontal center of the inner hoop.

I’m now ready to program and embroider our buttonholes.

Shape Creator and Buttonholes

Remember on Day 1 I used Shape Creator to make our unique quilt label. Today I’ll use it to program a buttonhole closing for my cushion back.

In Embroidery Edit, the first thing I’ll do is select a buttonhole from my stitch menu. I’ve decided to use buttonhole #1.3.1 from the Stitch menu.

Once I have selected the stitch and it loads to the edit screen on my machine, I’ll use the Edit stitch menu to change the settings of my buttonhole. I’ll set the width to 5 mm, the length to 20 mm long and the density to .2mm.

Once I’ve edited my stitch settings, I’ll use the Edit Color icon on my creative icon 2 and change the color of the buttonhole so it will be more visible on my black fabric (you’ll see why when I use the mySewnet App).

Now I’m ready to use Shape Creator to make my buttonhole closing.

In the Shape Creator menu, I’ll use the Basic Shape – Straight Line.

When my straight line appears I want it to go the length of my hoop so I’ll rotate it 90 degrees, and change the length of it to 320 mm.

Set the pattern repeat to 5 and I have 5 perfectly spaced buttonholes – perfect for the back of my cushion!

Now I’d like my buttonholes to be perpendicular and right now they are horizontal. It’s so easy to change the direction of the stitch in the Positioning screen of Shape Creator. Just click on the vertical position and voila! My buttonholes are now vertical. Love this feature!

I touch OK and I’m ready to embroider them.

Embroidering the buttonholes using the mySewnet App

One of my all-time favorite embroidery features is the free mySewnet App that you can download for either Apple or Android tablets and phones.

In the mySewnet app, I’ll use the Design Placement feature to position my design. I can also monitor my embroidery progress, scan QR codes to create a QR embroidery or create a Photostitch design. For more information on mySewnet App click on the Settings menu in the upper right corner.

When I click on Design Placement the first thing I need to do is connect to my machine. After I’ve done that, the next step is to take a picture of my hoop with my cushion back. Once I’ve done that I have the option to either Retake Photo or Use Photo.

If I’m happy with the photo I’ll select Use Photo.

The next step is to set the correct size hoop and set the corners of the embroidery area of the hoop.

The final step is to send it to my creative icon 2 Embroidery Edit screen. The background changes to show the fabric in the hoop and you can see why I changed the color of the buttonholes –much easier to see against the black fabric.

I’ll use the background image to move the buttonholes to the drawn center line ready for embroidery.

After I’ve moved the buttonholes I’ll go to the Embroidery Stitch-out screen.

I’ll use Precise Positioning, just like I did yesterday, to double-check the position of the buttonholes on my fabric and, after doing that I’ll stitch them out.

Use mySewnet App to embroider your quilt block

So, if it was this easy to use the mySewnet app with my creative icon 2 to position the buttonholes on my cushion back, imagine how incredible the mySewnet app would work with quilting a quilt!

I have a quilt top that I’ve been waiting to finish for a while now. I found the perfect design #41 in the Quilt Category on my creative icon 2 to embroider the quilt with but I don’t know how well it will fit my quilt blocks other than comparing the size of the embroidery to the quilt block.

mySewnet App to the rescue!

I sandwiched my quilt with batting and a flannelette backing fabric and hooped the quilt layers in my 260 x 260 creative Grand Quilter’s hoop. I don’t need any other stabilizer with the 3 layers of my quilt.

I used Design Placement in mySewnet App to take a picture of my sandwiched quilt in the 260 x 260 hoop.

After I take the picture, the next step is to choose the hoop size and mark the position of the corners in the hoop.

The final step in Design Placement on the mySewnet App is to send the background image of the quilt to the Embroidery Edit screen of my creative icon 2.

And now the Embroidery Edit screen of my creative icon 2 shows the background of my quilt block and what the design will look like on it. I can easily move the design so it’s placed exactly where I want it on my quilt block – I think it’s perfect!

It’s so much easier to visually see the design on the quilt block before I embroider it – it doesn’t get much better than this!

When I’m ready to embroider it, I’ll go to the stitch-out mode and use Precise Positioning to confirm that my design is going to stitch exactly where I want it to.

I love to use the projector as it shows the design where it will stitch on the fabric – another method of making sure my design is going to stitch exactly where I want it to. I love all the tools I have to choose from to make sure my embroidery is exactly where I want it.

Three repeats of the design are embroidered on the quilt. It looks great! I’m really happy with how this quilt design works with my quilt. I love Design Placement in the mySewnet App – it makes quilting my quilts so much easier! All I have to do now is finish it!

You can see how incredible Design Placement on the mySewnet App is for visualizing your embroidery design on your fabric or quilt block before you embroider it on your PFAFF creative icon 2.

Join me tomorrow when I finish sewing my rose applique cushion.

Until tomorrow!

This is part 4 of 5 in this series

Go back to part 3: Working the Precision Positioning | creative icon 2

Go to part 5: The PFAFF Sew-on Button Foot helps to finish a cushion cover