Stitch Creator on the PFAFF creative icon 2 – Altering Built-in Stitches

Yesterday we played with Tapering a 9mm decorative stitch and programming how long we wanted our tapered stitch to be.

Today we’re looking at my all-time favorite sewing feature on PFAFF sewing machines – Stitch Creator. You’d think that since the PFAFF creative icon 2 has over 800 built-in stitches we wouldn’t need any more – right? Well, I don’t know about you, but I never have enough stitch choices to choose from – I’m always looking for more!

Stitch Creator allows us to alter the built-in 9mm stitches or create our own 9mm wide stitch – yup, you got it – there’s no limit to the number of stitches we can have on our PFAFF sewing machines! It’s easy to alter and adapt existing stitches. Let’s pick one we like and sew it on our Mug Rug. Tomorrow we’ll create our own stitches.

Remember, if you don’t have a Stitch Creator feature, use one of your decorative stitches on your Mug Rug. Although, you might want to read through the blog first to see what you’re missing with Stitch Creator!

Altering existing stitches in Stitch Creator

Stitch Creator is found in two places on the PFAFF creative icon 2. If you open Stitch Creator from the bottom toolbar you can bring in the stitch you want to alter or you can create your own. If you have a stitch open on the screen and you decide you want to edit the stitch, just touch and hold on the stitch and when the pop-up window appears, select Edit in Stitch Creator. There is also an Edit in Stitch Creator icon in the Edit Stitch window. Remember we have a built-in User’s Guide and if you select the ‘?’ at the top of the screen and click on the Stitch Creator icon, you’ll get a pop-up window with a definition of the icon you clicked on and a direct link to Stitch Creator in the built-in User’s Guide – it doesn’t get much better than that!

Whether altering an existing stitch or creating a new one, Stitch Creator gives us tools for altering the stitch: add stitch points, delete stitch points, select only some stitch points, triple stitch all or part of the stitch points, mirror image the selected stitch points, even add another decorative stitch anywhere within the altered stitch. The width of the grid is 9mm, each grid is 1mm and the center of the 9mm grid is shown. You can touch and drag on the screen or use the arrows to move your stitch point.

Let’s start with playing and altering an existing stitch. I love the bow stitch #5.1.4 that’s on my PFAFF creative icon 2, but I wish it had a bolder look to it when it’s stitched out. With Stitch Creator, it’s easy to alter the stitch to achieve a bolder look.

Here it is on the screen on my PFAFF creative icon 2. To edit in Stitch Creator, either touch and hold on the screen, and in the pop-up menu, select Edit in Stitch Creator. Or you can touch the Edit Stitch Creator icon in the Edit Stitch window. Note that I detached parts of the Edit Stitch window since these are icons I use a lot.

The Stitch Creator window opens and the stitch is shown with all the stitch points selected. Notice the preview of the stitch in the left menu. Each stitch point is shown by a square. In the Edit Stitch window, you can see the available tools. Add stitch point, triple stitch points, Mirror image side to side, Mirror Image end to end, Zoom, Duplicate or delete stitch points as well as a Fine tune wheel with arrows to move stitch points. It’s easy to create a bolder look to the stitch – just select the 3x icon and the preview window on the left side shows a much bolder stitch.

I love that I can save the stitch while in Stitch Creator. When I select Save, mySewnet screen opens and I can name my altered stitch and save it to mySewnet cloud (or to a USB drive). Stitches are saved as a .spx extension.

So, what else can we do with this stitch to alter it? What if I only want the bow part to be bold? I just need to touch the 3x icon again to deactivate it and go back to my original stitch. I touch the Select Multiple icon to deselect all the stitch points. If I want to select only certain stitch points, I touch the stitch point I want to start with or use the arrows above the preview to move to the stitch point I want to start with and then I touch the Select Multiple and continue to use the arrows until the part I want to triple stitch is highlighted. Touch the 3x icon and just the selected stitch points are now tripled. Again, the preview shows the new stitch. I like it with just the bow part triple-stitched! Remember to save your altered stitch!

Let’s see what else we can create from this stitch. I’m deactivating the 3x icon to put the stitch back to the original stitch. What if I want to delete part of the bow? Again, just select the part we want to delete by using the arrows and Select Multiple icon and, when we have the part to delete selected, touch the delete icon.

I can also select all the stitch points, select duplicate and mirror image end to end and side to side and create a new stitch from the altered one. I can even delete both parts of the bow and insert a candlewicking stitch #9.1.1 in the middle of the stitch and at the end of the stitch. Here’s a stitch-out of the new stitches I created by simply altering stitch #5.1.4. The left side is the original stitch #5.1.4 and the following stitches are the altered stitches. The last stitch doesn’t look much like the original one, does it?

Another stitch I like to play with is more complicated. On the PFAFF creative icon 2, it’s stitch #5.3.23. By editing it in Stitch Creator and deleting parts of it and moving some of the existing stitch points, I created some very interesting new stitches. Here’s the original.

Here’s Stitch Creator with the middle section of the stitch deleted. By moving the beginning, middle and end points, along with moving the lower half of the stitch up, I created the stitch I’m going to sew down the center of my Mug Rug.

Here’s the stitch out of the original stitch #5.3.23 on the left and my newly created stitches from it.

And, one more stitch I like playing with…On my creative icon 2 it’s stitch #5.3.30. Here’s the original stitch in Stitch Creator.

I deleted the end part of the stitch, inserted a stitch point above the center satin stitches which moved the satin section down, selected all the stitch points, duplicated and mirror-imaged it end to end. Here’s the result.

And here’s a stitch out of the original 5.3.30 and a few other stitches that were created by using the tools available in Stitch Creator. Can you figure out what I deleted and/or added to create the other stitches? Stitch Creator can become very addictive!!! It’s all about playing with the tools in Stitch Creator!

When you finish playing with Stitch Creator and find a stitch you really, really like, sew it down the center line of your fabric. I liked the stitch I created by altering Stitch #5.3.23.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at how easy it is to make your own stitches using Stitch Creator on the PFAFF creative icon 2 and add them to our Mug Rug! You don’t want to miss it!

Until tomorrow!

This is part 2 of 5 in this series

Go back to part 1: Programming stitches on the PFAFF creative icon 2 [Tapering and Patchwork]

Go to part 3: Creative icon 2 Stitch Creator | Designing your own stitches