I’ve been having a great time building a stitch sampler with my HQ Stitch 710 by Handi Quilter. A stitch sampler is what you create by sewing out special stitches to see how they look, how they behave and so on.
If you never sew them out, you can’t imagine ways to use them and they can go to waste. I’ve taken to creating this kind of sampler every time I get a new machine. It’s time well spent.
The stitches on the 710 are divided into Modes 1–6. That’s just a way of grouping them. You can think of the modes as groups. There’s a pictorial directory of the stitches right on the machine, under the top cover. It’s handy to have them there!
I started out with the stitches in Mode 2. I’ve sewn about 60 of them so far.
At the bottom of the photo above are three lines of Stitch 1, what I call a serpentine. It’s fabulous for machine quilting with your walking foot. I’ll show you some examples in an upcoming post.
I’m excited about the next few stitches as well. Those little hills spaced evenly or more randomly will be such fun to play with for machine quilting small pieces.
Here are some more that I especially liked. There is great potential here. Besides machine quilting, I see embellishing and labels as two possible applications. There are many more!
If you’re a garment maker, it’s always fun to see where you can add a special touch with machine stitching. Children’s wear is especially susceptible!
Your thread choices make a big difference with these stitches. I used a 50/2, which means 50-weight and two plies. This is a medium to lightweight thread. It looks great in some of the stitches, but some of them like the hearts in green could use a beefier thread. I will experiment with that down the road.
For the last few rows of stitches, I switched to a variegated thread. I think there’s a place for variegated, but you have to be careful because it can look splotchy or uneven. I really like those stars at the center of the photo above. Wouldn’t they be great on the label of a patriotic quilt?
My next task will be to use a marker and write the number of each stitch right on the sampler, as well as the direction in which I sewed.
I hope you’ll make a sewn sampler of the stitches on your machine, too. And if you’re enticed by the pretty performance of the HQ Stitch 710, by all means, find a retailer in your area. I’m really enjoying all the things it can do!
What a great idea! I have never had decorative stitches and have been putting off trying them out, afraid of breaking something. I have found the 710 is smarter than I…if the settings are wrong it will not go and sounds an alert. You have inspired me to stitch out a sampler! It looks like you have just two layers of fabric and you mentioned the threads you used for your sampler. These stitches would be great for the embroidery in a Crazy Quilt.
I love the even feed foot…it works so smoothly. Last weekend our local quilt shop had a free-motion class with Gail-Berry Graham, that was a lot of fun information and I was able to bring my 710 for the class. I have been practicing using my 710 machine, trying to improve my machine quilting. So much fun to use this machine. Smooth, quiet and smart!
Thanks for the sampler idea!