The Luminaire XP1, its camera and projector for decorative stitches fun

Yesterday I finished up the ‘quilt-as-you-go’ table runner I made using decorative stitches from the new Brother The Luminaire Innov-ís XP1.

Today I’ll show you how to make some quick placemats with decorative stitches using a twin needle on the The Luminaire. You’ll also see how to use the camera and projector that shows adjustable single and double guidelines, and displays grid lines with adjustable intervals right on your fabric!

materials

• 2 – 13″ x 19″ pieces of fabric for the placemat front and back

• 13″ x 19″ piece of lightweight batting

• 13″ x 19″ piece of lightweight fusible stabilizer (included with the machine)

• 2 – 3″ x WOF strips for binding

• 1 twin needle, size 2.0/11 (included with the machine)
• 2 different colored spools of thread

Let’s start sewing!

• Following the instructions in the manual, insert the twin needle and thread with 2 different thread colors. I used a red and a blue thread.

• From the “utility stitches” menu, choose a decorative stitch. If you happen to choose one that cannot be sewn with a twin needle, that stitch will be grayed out on the screen or you will get a message on the LCD screen along with a little sad face emoji!

• Again, it’s a good idea to do a few practice rows of stitching before working on your final project. I tried out a few stitches, adjusting both width and length, to see what I liked. It’s also a good idea to mark down the settings you used when you find a stitch that you really like. When doing decorative stitching, I prefer using the “start/stop” button on the front of the machine instead of the foot pedal, along with a slow stitching speed, for better control while sewing.

• Press the lightweight fusible stabilizer to the back of one of the 13″ x 19″ pieces of fabric.

• Sew 1 line of decorative stitching across the bottom of the placemat, about 2″ from the edge of the fabric, using the projector feature to show exactly how the stitch will look on your fabric.

• Now you can turn on the grid lines and you’ll be able to line up each successive row of stitching however you like. Be sure to look at this blog post  http://blog.brothersews.com/quick-tip/using-the-grid-projector-luminaire/. There’s a video at the end that shows the use of the projector, grid lines and stylus. It really shows what great features these are on the Brother Luminaire sewing and embroidery machine.

• I sewed decorative rows of embroidery along the bottom and side of my placemat, but you can design your placemat however you wish.

Finishing

• Remove excess stabilizer from the back of the fabric.
• Layer placemat top, batting and backing.
• Baste or pin the layers together.
• Attach the dual feed foot that comes with the machine, and you’re ready for quilting!
• When you choose the utility stitch group and the Q stitch group, you’ll find many stitches that can be used for quilting. Stitches that can’t be used for quilting will be grayed out on the LCD screen or you’ll get the sad-faced emoji.
• I used the serpentine stitch for quilting. I turned on the grid feature with the projector so I could line up all my quilting lines. What a great feature this is!
• When the quilting is finished, trim the edges of your placemat to the desired size. Mine is 12″ x 18″.

Binding

• Sew the 2 binding strips together to make 1 long strip. Using the dual-feed foot, sew on the binding with a ½” seam. This will give you a ½” finished-size binding.
• Fold the binding to the back and hand-stitch in place.
• You can see my detailed instructions for sewing on the binding on this August 11, 2016 post on QUILTsocial.

Of course, I couldn’t stop with just one placemat!

Again, I used the twin needle that comes with the machine and a few of the many decorative stitches (over 600 stitches are available on The Luminaire) to make another placemat.

This time I used the twin needle and made some curvy lines of stitching. The placemat was finished in the same way as the previous one.

Come back tomorrow and I’ll show you some more of my favorite features on the Brother The Luminaire Innov-ís XP1 Sewing, Embroidery and Quilting machine.