I went to Quiltfest Llangollen yesterday and I was blown away by the fabulousness of the quilts I saw on display there.
There were many quilts that had applique work on them, and the majority of these had what looked like a machined blanket stitch around the edges of each appliqued motif.
The stitching looked wonderful, but sadly none of my vintage Berninas can sew such a stitch
.... or can they?
So I spent some time tonight playing on my 930, and realised that a hack is possible after all.
I selected the blindstitch, set the stitch width to 2.0, and the stitch length to 1. I set the 930 to half speed so it would just chug along quite slowly.
The blindstitch consists of 6 stitches. First are sewn 4 straight stitches, then stitch 5 has the needle swing to the left, and finally stitch 6 swings the needle back to the right.
I found if I counted along with the stitches, counting 1, 2, 3, 4 (- as the needle sewed the 4 straight stitches) then on the count of 5 (- for stitch 5) lifted the stitch length knob all the way up (- as though for reverse), then on the count of 6 (- for stitch 6) lower the knob back down for normal sewing again, I managed a passable blanket stitch:
In front of the presser foot is the normal blindstitch.
On the left is my blanket stitching.
In between the two is a line of vari-overlock stitch plus the towelling stitch, which is like a kind of wonky blanket stitch, which I tried out but is not suitable at all for what I wanted.
Please ignore the stitches directly below the motif... they were from me trying to do a Bernina mock hand quilting stitch, and the less said about that the better.... I read about the technique in an old Bernina leaflet, where it looked quite impressive, but try as I might I can't get it to happen.
I like my faux blanket stitch though, I think with a little more practice I'd do a neater job, and I'm sure I could put it to use somewhere.
Mods - this may well be in the wrong place, but as it involves my vintage Bernina I put it in vintage machines - please move as appropriate if need be