BQM files let you stitch professional longarm quilting designs on your BERNINA - no longarm required. If you own a BERNINA 7 PRO Series machine, the new B 990, or a Q Series with Q-matic, you can use infinitely scalable BQM quilting designs and set your own stitches per inch, for beautiful edge-to-edge results. Here’s how BQM files work, which BERNINA machines support them, and where to find hundreds of designs from OESD - for BERNINA and other machine brands too.
Here’s a question we hear a lot in the Studio: “I love the look of those big, flowing longarm quilting designs - but I don’t have a longarm. Can I still get that look?”
The honest answer used to be “not really.” If you wanted those edge-to-edge feathers, swirls and motifs that make a finished quilt sing, you needed a longarm machine on a frame. For a lot of quilters, that’s simply more machine and more space than they have room for.
That’s no longer the case. If you own a BERNINA from the 7 Series, the brand-new B 990, or a Q Series machine running Q-matic, you already have the power to stitch genuine longarm designs. The secret is a clever little file format called BQM.
So what exactly is a BQM file?
BQM stands for “BERNINA Q-matic” - the automation system that drives our Q Series longarm machines here in the Studio. BQM files are the quilting designs that the system uses, and they behave very differently from ordinary embroidery files.
The magic is in two things:
- They’re infinitely scalable. Unlike a standard embroidery design, you can shrink a BQM motif right down or blow it up enormously, and it still stitches beautifully. No more stitches that come out absurdly long or comically short when you resize.
- You set the stitches per inch. You tell the machine how dense you want the stitching, right on the screen, and it does the rest. That’s exactly how a longarm works - and now your domestic machine can do it too.
In other words, a BQM file gives you longarm-quality results from a design that bends, stretches and adjusts to fit your quilt.
Which BERNINA machines can use BQM files?
This is where it gets exciting, because the list has grown:
- The Q Series with Q-matic - our longarm machines on a frame, where BQM files have always lived. Import designs in .bqm (or .dxf) format and let Q-matic do the automated quilting for you.
- The 7 Series - the 790 PRO was the first domestic BERNINA to open this door, and now every machine in the 7 Series can load a BQM design onto the embroidery side, built-in, Wi-Fi, or USB, scale it freely and set your own stitches per inch. It’s one of the real joys of owning a PRO.
- The brand-new B 990 -the 990 also lets you store a whole folder of your favourite BQM designs right on the machine, so your library is always there, ready when inspiration strikes - no hunting for the USB stick or setting up your laptop to connect to the wifi to access a design.
Pair any of these with the Needle-Point Laser and four-point pinpoint placement, and positioning your design exactly where you want it becomes genuinely easy.
Where to find beautiful BQM designs
A clever file format is only as good as the designs you can put through it - and this is where we’d love to point you to OESD.
Quilt Direct is an official OESD Premier Partner, and OESD’s Longarm Quilting Designs & Pantographs library is brimming with hundreds of high-quality designs. There are edge-to-edge patterns, motifs, blocks and borders to suit everyone from first-time longarmers to seasoned pros, with new releases every week and collaborations with much-loved designers like Tula Pink, Rashida Coleman-Hale and Amanda Murphy.
And here’s the good news, if you don’t quilt on a BERNINA: the OESD Quilting site supplies these longarm designs in multiple formats for all brands of longarm machines - not just BQM. Whatever longarm system you run, there’s a good chance the design you’ve fallen for will load straight into it.
When you browse and buy your OESD designs through our partner link, you’re not only getting first-class quilting designs - you’re supporting Quilt Direct too. As a small, family-run business, that genuinely means the world to us, and it helps us keep doing the things we love: running the Studio, offering longarm hire and tuition, and being here on the phone whenever you need a hand.
Quilting on a domestic machine? OESD has you covered, too
No longarm or no PRO machine? You needn’t miss out on that gorgeous all-over quilted look. As well as the longarm library, OESD has a separate Embroidery site packed with designs - including beautiful edge-to-edge (E2E) quilting patterns - made for domestic embroidery machines across all the major brands from the same well-known designers.
These come as multi-format downloads (you receive every available format with your purchase), so whether you stitch on a BERNINA, Brother, Janome, Pfaff, Husqvarna or another make, there’s a format ready to drop straight into your machine. Have a browse of the OESD embroidery designs to bring that professional quilted finish to your projects, whatever you sew on.
Ready to give it a go?
Whether you’re quilting on a longarm, a PRO machine or your trusty domestic, the world of ready-made quilting designs is wide open to you - and we’d love to help you find your first one.
If this has sparked an idea for your next quilt, we’d be delighted if you started your design hunt with us. Every OESD purchase made through our partner link supports our small, family-run business - and keeps the Studio, the classes and the longarm hire going strong. You can also give our friendly team a call on 01822 810877, or pop into the Studio for a demonstration any time.
Thank you, as always, for sewing with us. Happy quilting!
