Inchies Tutorial

Okay, here we go, I've not done this before so I hope everyone understands how I made the inchies once I've finished....

My software is Bernina Artista V5 (can't justify the cost of an upgrade).   This is not the definitely way of making inchies but to me its the easiest.  If you have another software make I'm sure there will be something very similar so this tutorial can be used by you.

Open up a new screen and set your hoop size (I used a large one as I wanted to sew out as many inchies as I could get in one hooping).  Set your grid pattern, I made mine 1" so I could draw out the inchies easily.

Select 'fill' and choose which type pattern you want inside your inchies and click on the rectangular tool (highlighted in orange on the left hand side).

Click on the Object Properties page (last in the orange block on the top bar) and select the pattern you want inside your inchies.   There are lots to choose from and you can alter the size of the pattern by changing some of the settings - play with them.   Click 'apply and ok'.    Note: make sure the rectangle box is still selected, if not select it again, sometimes it clears and you don't realise its not active.

Draw a square by using the grid lines.   To do this click your mouse point in the corner of one of the grid squares, hold the shift key down and pull your mouse diagonally until the square covers the grid lines.  Let go, press enter and your square now has the pattern you chose inside it.

Next stage is to put a border round it so that the whole thing doesn't fall to pieces if you sew it out on a soluble fabric, ask me how I know! 

This time change the stitch to 'Outline' and select satin stitch, change the colour so you can see whats happening.  Go to the Object Properties page again and change the width of the satin stitch to a small one.  I used 0.10in but you can choose whatever you think appropriate.   Click OK and draw a box round your pattern square by clicking your mouse in the top left corner and pulling your mouse diagonally until you reach the opposite corner.  Press enter and your inchies now have a satin stitch border round them.

At this point you have a choice.  If you want your inchies to sew out as one piece, ie all the same colour then you need to group the two squares.  To do this press Ctrl A (to select all) and press the group key which is (on my software) at the bottom of the screen 1st one on the left.

If you would like your inchies to have a different coloured border then just save the file and the software will stop once the pattern has been sewn out ready for you to change the colour of the border.

Save your finished inchy, I've saved mine to the usb stick but you can save them directly to a folder if you wish.  I forgot to take a screen shot of the finished inchy but you can see what it looked like with the border from this save screen.

I repeated the process to make enough inchies to fit into my hoop then grouped them together and saved as one file.
Have fun and I hope you could follow the tutorial.