Upgrade to QCT 6 Plus to Import Digital Quilting Designs

When you upgrade from QCT 6 to QCT 6 Plus, your quilting library will expand immediately with new pattern folders and over 300 digital quilting designs created by The Grace Company and designers like me!

Here's a list of the new features you'll Quilter's Creative Touch Plus level:

1. Import - No matter how many designs we have, it's always nice to have more! You must have this QCT software level to import new digital quilting designs and export different file types too.
2. Power Placement - Easily place digital quilting designs accurately on your quilt and stitch quilt blocks, sashing, triangles and borders with unique designs.
3. Pantograph - Plan 2 rows of your pantograph design at a time and stagger the rows to create unique effects. You can also use this tool to chain continuous line designs together and place them as a single design on your quilt.
4. Marking Tool - Wish you could know if that quilt block design is overlaping the sashing? Now you can use the marking tool to mark lines on your quilt as reference points, or you can use this feature to plan and quilt straight line designs on your quilts!

The feature quilters ask about the most often when it comes to QCT 6 is - how do you import quilting designs?

You cannot import digital quilting designs into the most basic level of QCT 6. You must have QCT 6 Plus in order to import quilting designs. Learn how to use the Batch Import tool to quickly import an entire collection of designs in this video:

Prepare the autumn fabric panel by washing in cold water with mild detergent. I did not wash my panel before cutting due to time constraints. After I finished the quilt and washed it, I found the fabric did not bleed or fade, but it did shrink very slightly.

I applied starch to the right side of the panel and pressed from the wrong side. Make sure to test your iron heat on a corner of the fabric or a scrap to see how it reacts.

The Basket Weave Quilt panel from Honest Fabric includes two fun Autumn quilts! Carefully cut out both projects, leaving 1/2 inch of background around the printed designs:

1. Throw / Tablecloth Size Autumn Quilt Panel - 52 x 82 inches
2. Autumn Table Runner Quilt - 12 x 68 inches

If you cut out the quilts carefully, you will have plenty of red printed background fabric to use as the binding for both quilts.

If you use flannel for batting, make sure to wash at least 2 times in HOT water to reduce shrinkage.

Wash your backing fabric in warm water with mild detergent. Tumble dry, then starch and press with a hot, dry iron. Cut the backing fabric in half, then sew the two long edges together to create an 84 x 90 inch backing fabric. You can then rip one side to reduce the backing fabric to a reasonable 64 x 90 inch piece for this autumn quilt project.

1. Step 1 - Measure the horizontal rectangle on the quilt and change your Total Width to fit the design measurement. Change the Total Width to be 1/2 inch less than the space to create a small margin to the top and bottom of the design on your quilt.
2. Step 2 - Select the Pattern from the pattern library in QCT 6 Plus. We are using designs found in the "Continuous Line" design folder. Note - there are a lot more digital quilting designs that can work for this quilt now and they can be found in the "Edge-to-Edge" folder.
3. Step 3 - Adjust the number of patterns until you like the size and shape of the designs.
4. Step 4 - When you're happy with the design, tap "Place as a Single Pattern" and the QCT 6 Plus software will treat this as one single design to place on your quilt.
5. Step 5 - Optional! If you don't have a ruler on hand, you can click this ruler button on the top of your screen to measure spaces on your quilt instead.

Quilting the Tiny Rectangles

There are a few tiny rectangles to quilt and these will measure 3 x 4 or 4 x 4 inches.

To plan the designs for these, again, change the size of the rectangle to be the full horizontal width, but 1/2 less in height.

1. For a 3 inch wide x 4 inch tall rectangle, the quilting designs will measure 3 x 3.5 inches.
2. For a 4 inch wide x 4 inch tall rectangle, the quilting designs will measure 4 x 3.5 inches.

This resulted in a space that was more or less proportional to the longer rectangles. I selected 1 quilting design to fill in the tiny rectangles.

See all the steps to plan the digital quilting design, place the design on your quilt, and quilt it beautifully with QCT 6 Plus in this video:

If you are quilting this autumn quilt panel on a Qnique 15 or Little Rebel sewing machine, you'll follow the directions above and quilt all the spaces as horizontal designs. You have plenty of room in the arm of your machine to quilt the designs horizontally with QCT 6 Plus.

When it comes time to quilt the rectangles running in the other direction (vertically), remove the quilt from your quilting frame and rotate it. Then reload the quilt so all the unquilted rectangles how run parallel with the rails of the frame. This has made the vertical rectangles now horizontal so you can quilt them too!

If you are quilting on a Qnique 19 or Qnique 21 longarm, you will have space to quilt the vertical rectangles without having to rotate your quilt. You'll just need to rotate the digital quilting design!

To do this, plan the design in the Pantograph Maker the same way we did before: 2-3 designs chained together and measure the vertical rectangle on the autumn quilt panel. Now you will create a design that is the full height, but 1/2 inch less than the width.

On the next screen, use the 45 degree rotate button to rotate the design vertical (you'll have to hit it twice).

The design will end up looking really squished and weird and that's when you use the placement notes - 4 points stretch - to place the design and stretch it back out so it fits the vertical rectangle properly.

Once you get the points placed, pull up your bobbin thread and hit "Sew" and your vertical rectangles can be quilted as well.

Would you like a faster way to place and quilt all of these designs in rectangles? QCT 6 PRO + Gold Card includes a tool called Multi-Pattern Placement which allows you to plan and place multiple designs at a time, then quilt them all in sequence. This saves a lot of time placing designs so you can spend more time working on another quilt!

One of the best tools in QCT 6 Plus you can use to check your quilting and to help you with outline quilting, stitching in the ditch, or designing your own straight-line designs is the Marking Tool.

Follow along with the screenshot below to learn how to use the Marking Tool:

We're using the Marking Tool to plan and stitch an outline around each rectangle of our autumn quilt panel.

1. Step 1 - It's generally helpful to have all three checkboxes checked in this section so you can see the grid and pattern size as you plan your design.
2. Step 2 - Access the Marking Tool by clicking on the "Toolbox" and scrolling down to "Marking Tool."
3. Step 3 - Roll your machine to where the design will likely end on your quilt and hit "Add" to add a mark in that spot. Roll the machine to the next spot and hit "Add" to mark the outline of the rectangle.
4. Step 4 - If you're unsure of your placement or if your lines are straight, hit the magnifying glass on the top bar to zoom in or out on your design.
5. Step 5 - When you're ready to quilt, make sure both the Pattern and Markings boxes are checked so both will stitch out. 
   
   If you are using the marking tool and don't want the markings to stitch, just uncheck this box - it's that easy!

As you saw in the video, there are alternatives to using the Marking Tool and that is to instead grab a Ditcher Ruler and use ruler quilting to stitch the outline of the rectangles.

Just make sure you have a Ruler Base and Ruler Foot attached to your longarm before switching to ruler quilting. And no, I don't make any changes to my longarm, quilting frame, or QCT when switching to another style of quilting.

I just check the monitor on my longarm machine and if it says "Stitch Regulated: Precise" that means the longarm machine (and handlebar buttons) are in control.

No, you don't need to loosen the belts on your QCT 6 system in order to move the machine. You may feel a slight resistance, but with practice, you will be able to quilt any design - free motion quilting filler design or ruler quilting design - immediately after finishing a design with QCT.

With the center of the quilt beautifully quilted, it's time to turn our attention to the outer borders of our fall quilt.

I designed the Basket Weave autumn quilt panel to be easier to quilt with Quilter's Creative Touch 6 Plus with corner blocks in the borders. To quilt the corners, use the simple "Select and Sew" tool and select design "2" and place them in the corners of the quilt.

I used the edges of my ruler foot to place the digital quilting design 1/4 inch inside the edges of the block so there was a little empty space between the design and the borders. This just makes it look neat and tidy!

As for the placement method, I used 4 points stretch. This ensures even if the space on the quilt is stretched a bit and not perfectly square, the design will still be centered nicely within that space.

Quilt the two corner blocks at the top of the quilt and then it's time to tackle a long border.

The first step to quilting a long border with QCT 6 Plus is to measure it. I needed to pull out my 10 foot construction measuring tape because my 5 foot cloth tape measures just wouldn't cut it! 

Note - there are measuring tools within QCT 6 Plus and I will update this tutorial with instructions on using them soon.

The longer border rectangles on my autumn quilt panel measured 6.5 x 70.5 inches. The shorter borders measured 6.5 x 40.25 inches. I wanted the border design to fill the full length of the spaces, but to add a margin to the top and bottom of the design. When designing the borders, here's how I planned the designs:

Longer Borders - 5 x 70.5 inch space

Short Borders - 5 x 40.25 inch space

Why? Because quilt border tend to be a bit wiggly and not perfectly straight. I shared many tips in the video for helping you get the border straighter in the frame and running perfectly parallel to the rails of the frame. We even basted the quilt when loading it to ensure the edges were straight and square.

But even with those extra steps - if I sized the design at 6 1/2 inches tall, it would run the risk of overflowing into the middle of the quilt or bleeding off the top edge which looks messy.

This is why I recommend adding a 3/4 inch margin between the quilting design and the top and bottom edges of the border. That is plenty of wiggle room just in case the border isn't perfectly straight.

Quilting a long border is basically like quilting a much larger rectangle like we did before. See the entire process step-by-step in this video:

Here's a few last tips for quilting long borders with QCT 6 Plus:

1. Make sure to check your bobbin before you begin quilting the long border designs especially. It is possible to recover from a thread break in the middle of the border, but it isn't much fun.
2. Of course when you change bobbins make sure to pull your machine to one side and test your stitches. You might need to adjust your tension slightly from one bobbin to another and it's also nice to figure this out off your real quilt!
3. Don't Leave Your QCT! I don't advise walking away from your machine as it quilts these long designs. Something can glitch and it's always faster and easier to fix the issue if you stop the machine as close to the break as possible.
4. If you have another machine in the room, consider piecing something fun, or stitching out an embroidery design, or maybe do a few jumping jacks.