Machine Embroidery Quilting

Quilting enthusiasts who are not already usings machines for their embroidery works may suddenly find themselves hooked once they realize they can use the embroidery machine to quilt.

Embroidery is a traditional way to make quilts more decorative using various patterns. Today's machine embroidery can make quilting quite different from what it used to be if you're willing to give it a try.

If you want to have a go at it, look for a simple embroidery design - one that you can easily visualize stitched into a quilt. Other simple designs like flowers, circles, sun/moon, houses, hearts - there are all sorts of designs to choose from - can work well as quilting stitches. But be sure to keep your quilt top's theme in mind. While the quilt top is beautiful with its color variety, the quilt back is just as pretty with its simple stitching that follows the design on the top.

Lap quilts and baby quilts are very easy to create on an embroidery machine. Simply hoop your top fabric, batting and backing fabric into an embroidery hoop. Pick a design and get to work! Even if you are quilting solid color fabrics, you can complete a quick, beautiful quilt with the embroidery machine in no time!

The method above uses machine embroidery on relatively small quilts. Larger quilts can be done the same way or may be quilted with machine embroidery by individual quilt blocks. Experiment to decide which method is easiest for you and remember that the machine embroidery quilting method may change with each unique project.

If you have a special quilt pattern in mind but can't find a similar design for machine embroidery, ask a digitizer to help you create it. A digitizer is someone who takes art images like line drawings, clip art and fonts and alters them to become a stitch pattern. So if you'd like for your family tree wall hanging to be quilted with a tree pattern, a digitizer can create one for you.

Tell your digitizer you want to use the image for quilting. The digitizer will need to plan stitches accordingly.

Remember, it wasn't too many years ago that die-hard quilters refused to consider machine quilting at all! Embroidery machines will never take the place of quilters, but it can be a fun and rewarding sewing technique to try from time to time.