Best Tips for Adding Monograms to a Project

In a previous post, I explained how I used the decorative stitches on the Janome MC9400, to create my own personalized fabric. Now I want to explain how you can do the same thing with the monogram feature on the Janome MC9400. If you’re not familiar with how to use the Monogram feature on this machine, click here to watch a video that takes you through it step by step.

I thought that it would be fun to create phrases that speak to me personally and use the Monogram feature on the Janome MC9400 to stitch these onto a project. As I have recently been creating small pouches (so addictive!), I wanted to add these personal phrases to one of them to make my own personalized pouch to hold some of my quilting accessories – and some treats, of course!

I found that there were several things I needed to consider to achieve successful results and I wanted to share these with you.

It’s better to create your words or phrases all at one time so they will be ready when you want to stitch them onto a project. This allows you to change the font, adjust your spacing and ensure that the letters stitch out exactly the way you want them to.

Just as when you are adding decorative stitches to a project, you want to ensure that you use fabric stabilizer, if necessary. In my pouch project, I was already stitching onto several layers of fabric and batting, so fabric stabilizer wasn’t necessary, but it might be required for your project.

Remember that part of your project will be in the seam allowance, and you don’t want your words to disappear into it as some of mine did in my prototype project below. Consider your seam allowance when deciding where to start stitching your words.

Decide if you will be monogramming all over the surface of your project or only in certain areas. For my pouch, I didn’t see the point of stitching on the bottom of it as it wouldn’t be seen, so I only added my lettering to the sides.

Decide the distance between your lines of stitching. In my project, my stitching was 3/4″ away from the next stitched line. Consider the size of your project when deciding on this.

You’ll also need to measure the length of your monograms and decide where you want them to be on your project. If you are only stitching one short word, you may be able to repeat it several times across your fabric. You’ll always want to ensure that you don’t start your stitching in the seam allowance area. Knowing how long your stitching will be will allow you to centre it widthwise on your project and you’ll then be able to add some registration marks with an erasable marker to help you. You can see exactly how to do this by watching the video below.

I had lots of fun creating the monograms on the Janome MC9400 and adding them to my pouch. I now have my own personalized pouch to hold my quilting accessories (great for my marking pens) as well as some special treats.

For videos and more information on the Janome MC9400 sewing machine, visit my Chatterbox Quilts’ YouTube channel.

Happy stitching from Kim Jamieson-Hirst, Janome Canada Artisan in Calgary, Alberta.