I’m making the Quiltville Mystery Quilt by Bonnie Hunter this year, along with tens of thousands of other quilters. I’ve done it twice before and I enjoyed it each time. This year’s quilt is called Good Fortune, and it has some string pieced units. My HQ Stitch 510 made short work of them.

I needed 96 string pieced rectangles cut to 2.5″ x 4.5″. I used phone book pages as my foundations, and I cut them 5″ x 11″. I put the strips going the long way on the papers as shown below, to the right.

 

 

The HQ Stitch is perfect for string piecing. Its capacity to make 1600 stitches per minute means that each seam is sewn quickly, even when you’re making very short stitches.

 

 

For comparison, the HQ Stitch 710 sews 1000 stitches per minute, and the HQ Stitch 210 makes 650 stitches per minute. It doesn’t mean these machines are slow. It’s just that the 510 is built for speed. 

 

 

A machine that only makes one kind of stitch can be engineered to function at a higher speed. And that’s what Handi Quilter did for the HQ Stitch 510.

 

 

Have you ever noticed that when you crank the stitch length down for tasks like string piecing or paper piecing, the time to sew the seam can feel eternal? Not with the 510. Zip-zip and you’re done!

I made a short video to show you how quickly string piecing goes on this machine.

Visit your local Handi Quilter retailer and take a test drive on the HQ Stitch 510. I think you’ll love it.

If there’s not a dealer in your area, you’ll find Handi Quilter at many major quilt shows around the country and the world.

~Diane Harris~

Find the 2018 Quiltville Mystery “Good Fortune.”

See lots of ideas for string piecing on my Pinterest board.