Centering a Design and Adding Margins Without Auto-scale

Happy Feature Friday, everyone! This week Aubrey is back in her sewing studio finishing up the quilt she started showing us last week — and she's down to the very last block. Rather than just stitching it out the same way she did the others, she's using this last block to teach us something valuable: how to get that same clean, centered look with margins without relying on the auto-scale feature.

If you've been following along, you already know the look we're going for — a design that floats in the center of a block with a tidy half-inch margin all the way around, so nothing crowds the stitch-in-the-ditch lines or spills into the block next door. Last week, auto-scale did that work automatically. This week, Aubrey shows that if your robotic quilting system doesn't have auto-scale, you can get the exact same result with a little bit of simple math and a couple of built-in tools you already have.

Why bother learning the manual method?

Not every robotic system comes with auto-scale, and even if yours does, it's worth knowing what's happening under the hood. As Aubrey puts it, "there's always a different way to do something" — and this episode is a great reminder that the software gives you multiple paths to the same finished quilt.

Step 1: Set your layout box

Start in the layout tool and build a pattern layout box that matches the block you're working on. Tap Add, then set each of the four corners of the block one at a time — top left, bottom left, bottom right, and finally top right — confirming each corner with the plus sign and finishing with the check mark. This gives you a box shaped exactly like your quilt block for the design to sit inside.

Step 2: Choose your pattern

Head up to Patterns and pull in the design you want to use. Aubrey's tip from last week pays off here: she'd already tagged every pattern for this quilt under one name, so finding the right design for this block took just a couple of taps. Highlight the pattern and confirm it with the check mark to load it into the layout box.

Step 3: Measure your block

Before you can size anything, you need to know exactly how big your block is. Aubrey grabs her ruler and measures — in this case, about 9¼ by 9¼ inches. Keep that number handy; it's the starting point for the math in the next step.

Step 4: Do the margin math

This is the heart of the manual method. If your block is 9¼ by 9¼ inches and you want a half-inch margin on every side, you need to shrink the design by a full inch in each direction — a half inch off each side:

• Width: 9¼" − ½" − ½" = 8¼"

• Height: 9¼" − ½" − ½" = 8¼"

Open the Scale feature, highlight it, and use Set Size to type in those new dimensions — 8¼" wide by 8¼" tall — confirming each one with the check mark. Your design is now smaller than the block itself, which is exactly what leaves room for that margin.

Step 5: Center it with the Move feature

A smaller design doesn't do you any good if it's sitting in a corner. Open the Move feature to bring up your move commands, and look for the two centering buttons — the icons with triangles pointing toward each other with a bar in the middle. There's one for vertical and one for horizontal.

Tap the vertical centering button first, and your design centers itself top to bottom, giving you that even half-inch gap above and below. Tap the horizontal one next, and it shifts the design side to side for a matching half-inch margin on the left and right. Because you already built in the extra space when you resized the pattern, centering it both ways gives you a perfect half-inch border all the way around — no auto-scale required.

Step 6: Stitch it out

From here, it's the usual stitching routine: go to home, engage the needle, hit the green start button, confirm the needle is clear of the fabric, and check-mark your way through the single stitch and bobbin thread pull. Cycle the needle to lock your stitches, turn stitching on, and let the machine do its work.

Watching the design stitch out, you can see the payoff — a clean margin of space along every edge of the block, matching the look of the blocks stitched with auto-scale the week before, and no overlap into the neighboring blocks.

Same results, different paths

With the last block finished, the quilt top is complete — and Aubrey is thrilled with how it turned out, front and back (that pink backing fabric is going to show off the stitching beautifully). But the real takeaway from this episode isn't just a finished quilt; it's the reminder that your robotic system usually gives you more than one way to reach the same result.

To recap the manual method:

1. Measure your block.

2. Subtract your desired margin (doubled, since it applies to both sides) from the block's width and height.

3. Use Set Size in the Scale feature to resize your design to those smaller dimensions.

4. Use the vertical and horizontal centering buttons in the Move feature to drop it perfectly into place.

Whether you use auto-scale and the margin feature, or you do the math yourself and center manually, you land in the same spot: a design floating beautifully in the middle of your block. It's just good to know both roads exist — especially if your system doesn't have auto-scale built in.

Want to see it in action? Watch the full episode here: Feature Friday 2026 Episode 33 — Centering & Creating Margins without Autoscale.

Thanks for stitching along with us this week! We'll see you next Feature Friday with a brand new quilt to start. Have a wonderful weekend!