I’m not quite half done quilting the medallion quilt.
The piecing is dense, and it took me a long time to decide how I wanted to quilt it. Anything very fancy would disappear, but it warrants something more special than a simple meander.
I looked at several of my machine quilting books for inspiration, and I didn’t get very far with that. Frankly, I need A LOT more practice at free motion quilting.
And ultimately I decided to use a pantograph, for an edge-to-edge design.
HA! Well, that’s rich. If you think I need a lot more practice with FMQ, guess how much I’ve had with pantographs. Go on. Guess!
Yeah, none.
Well, then, I guess it was time.
I have several pantograph rolls, some that came with my machine and a few my sister gave me. I dug them out of the closet and unfurled a few. The one I picked is wide, with an 11″ stitching pattern.
The next challenge was to figure HOW. I know the theory, and it’s easy. Simply use a stylus, in this case a laser pointer, to trace a drawn pattern, in this case with the needle and thread. But operationally it’s a little more difficult than that.
We have a wealth of resources available to us, and I used one of my favorites. I googled pantograph quilting and found a couple that were very helpful. The best one for me was written instructions from Longarm University.
They have a free tutorial on getting started. It’s clear and easy to read. I have to admit there are a couple of things I don’t get, but I’ll certainly read it again if I get into trouble.
How’s your project coming along?
Catbird Quilt Studio 
Great use of Google – I learned how to do machine paper piecing yesterday:))
I feel like I’m always looking stuff up! Thanks for taking a look here, too.
Giving it some love! It’s a pretty one; if I’d been following you at the time, I’d have Liked and Commented.
🙂