Ever considered using decorative stitches over straight-line stitches to quilt up your project? Explore the hundreds of decorative stitches the Brother Quilt Club series machines have to offer, to give your next quilting project a unique finish.

Here are some tips on how to use decorative stitches for quilting and a few of my favorite decorative stitches, along with the machine stitch length and width settings.

Supplies and Tools:

• Basic sewing machine with decorative stitching function – the Brother Innov-ís BQ3100(Opens in a new tab) from the Quilt Club Series was used in this tutorial.
• Prepared scrap quilt sandwich – to test out different decorative stitches.
• Prepared quilt sandwich.
• Coordinating thread, 50wt cotton.
• Brother Compact MuVit Digital Dual Feed Foot or walking foot attachment.

Before we get going with the sewing fun, here’s a couple of tips for successful outcomes:

• Test it Out: Even though you’re able to preview the decorative stitch on all of the Brother Quilt Club Series sewing machine displays, it’s still important to test it out on a scrap quilt sandwich.

This step allows you to:

• Try out the different built-in decorative stitches before stitching it to the final project,
• Play around with different sizing of the decorative stitch, stitch lengths and widths, and
• Figure out how fast you should be operating the machine and guiding the fabric at the same time.




• Take Your Time and Enjoy the Ride: Compared with straight-line quilting, quilting with decorative stitches may take a little longer, especially if the selected decorative stitch has more intricate and dense details.

Take your time. Do not force and guide the quilt sandwich through the sewing machine. By guiding the quilt sandwich too fast, it may cause the decorative stitch to stretch and lose its effect, and by guiding the quilt sandwich too slow, it may cause the decorative stitch to bunch up. It’s all about finding the sweet spot between the speed of the needle and the movement of the quilt sandwich.

• Get Your Bobbins in a Row: Wind up at least two bobbins (depending on the project size and intracity or density of the selected decorative stitch) and have them ready as soon as the bobbin in the sewing machine is running or low or out of thread. This makes the quilting process more efficient, because you can simply switch out the bobbing and sew away without pausing to wind a new bobbin.

And now on the actual fun part. Trying out the different decorative stitches. Here are a few of Wendy’s favourite decorative stitches, stitch lengths and widths to take the guess work out. But with that said, please don’t skip the testing part!

# Decorative Stitch: 2-12 – Fagoting cross stitch
Stitch Width: 7.0
Stitch Length: 5.0




# Decorative Stitch: 7-032
Stitch Width: 7.0
Stitch Length: 3.0




# Decorative Stitch: 7-085
Stitch Width: 7.0
Stitch Length: 4.0




# Decorative Stitch: 7-091
Stitch Width: 7.0
Stitch Length: 3.0




# Decorative Stitch: 3-21 - Hemstitching
Stitch Width: 7.0
Stitch Length: 3.0




# Decorative Stitch: 7-033 - Scallop
Stitch Width: 7.0
Stitch Length: 2.5




# Decorative Stitch: 2-11 – Feather stitch
Stitch Width: 7.0
Stitch Length: 2.5




# Decorative Stitch: 2-09 – Couching stitch
Stitch Width: 5.5
Stitch Length: 2.5




# Decorative Stitch: 2-16
Stitch Width: 7.0
Stitch Length: 3.5




# Decorative Stitch: 2-17 – Serpentine stitch
Stitch Width: 7.0
Stitch Length: 2.0




# Decorative Stitch: 7-003
Stitch Width: 7.0
Stitch Length: 3.5




# Decorative Stitch: 7-068
Stitch Width: 7.0
Stitch Length: 3.5




# Decorative Stitch: 7-054
Stitch Width: 7.0
Stitch Length: 2.5




# Decorative Stitch: 2-06
Stitch Width: 7.0
Stitch Length: 3.0




# Decorative Stitch: 7-093
Stitch Width: 7.0
Stitch Length: 3.5




# Decorative Stitch: 7-037
Stitch Width: 7.0
Stitch Length: 3.0




# Decorative Stitch: 7-019
Stitch Width: 7.0
Stitch Length: 2.5