Stitching words and custom stitches to enhance a quilted placemat

So many projects and so many ways to complete them with the features of the PFAFF creative 3.0! In yesterday’s post I shared the beginning of my free motion quilting adventure and the features on the creative 3.0 which made it a success AND not that scary at all! In today’s post, I’ll show you how I used the sequencing feature to add words to a quilted placemat.

This placemat has been waiting to be quilted since last spring! I thought it would be fun to quilt some words on it to go with all the text in the fabric.

While looking through the manual for the creative 3.0 I read about the sequencing feature and realized this is how I could do it!

The Color Touch Screen makes it easy to see what I’m doing as I select stitches and letters. I also used the stylus that comes with the creative 3.0 to select the letters on the touch screen.

My first design included a stitch before and after the words. I also chose to add a stop command (so the sequence wouldn’t repeat), a tie-off and a thread snip command.

I cut a 5″ piece of quilting fabric and stabilizer to test my sequence on – I wanted to make sure that it would fit in the space I had on the placemat.

I used the needle down button, lowered the machine speed, and pressed the start/stop button for the machine to stitch out the design.

I didn’t like how the sequence bunched up at the end so I edited it, removed the designs at the beginning and end, and tried stitching it again.

I saved the sequence in the personal files on the creative 3.0 so that I could try a different sequence.

For this sample, I used a cursive font!

For my second sequence, I used a built-in cross stitch before and after the words. After the first try, I realized it was hard to see the pink thread on the orange fabric! So I tried stitching it a second time using blue thread. This time the thread broke! But thanks to the features on the creative 3.0, I was able to re-thread the machine and move the needle to start in the same place where the thread had broken.

In the end, I went back to my first-word sequence and used the blue thread. I really like how the sequence turned out – it fit the space just the way I wanted.

Once I added the words I thought I would add a few more decorative stitches to finish off the quilting on the placemat. I used the same color and added a few of the machine’s built-in quilting stitches.

Around the “friends” patch of yellow, I used crazy patch quilt stitch 2.4.17. Using the guides on the presser foot and lining up the start position of the stitching by looking at the Color Touch Screen, I was able to put the stitches right on the edge of the yellow rectangle and I really like how it turned out!

Then I added a bit more turquoise stitching by using it to secure the edges of the two long side rectangles. I used the crazy patch stitch 2.4.2, again lining up the stitching with the guides provided on the foot. I also used the start/stop button for these designs and focused on keeping it stitching out straight by adjusting the machine’s speed down a bit.

The last stitch I used was a stippling stitch 2.3.4. It required me to change to presser foot 1A – not a problem! It’s so easy to push down to release the foot and push up to engage the new one!

The placemat is finished and ready to use – finally! I’m so glad I used the sequencing feature of the creative 3.0 to add my own words – a whimsical touch to be enjoyed while using the placemat this summer.
Stay tuned – this machine does embroidery too and I’m going to show you what it can do in tomorrow’s post.