(Photo above shows Echoed Swirls. There is only a tiny bit of backtracking found in this design.)

For the last several weeks, we've been answering questions submitted anonymously in our weekly email newsletter. Here is one question we received:

 

"I just stepped into the computerized long arm world. Waiting for the table extension pieces to show up. However, I hear long armers say, I didn't want backtracking on this quilt. So--why are the long arm patterns created with backtracking--and why would/wouldn't you want backtracking."

If you've ever browsed our design shop and noticed the words “no backtracking” on a listing, you might have wondered the same thing! Backtracking? Is that a bad thing? Should I be worried about it?

Backtracking itself isn't so bad. It's a tool used to accomplish designs that otherwise wouldn't be possible in a continuous format, without multiple starts and stops.


I've recorded a video at the top of this blog post that walks through five different designs, s...

I started playing around with a version of this design in 2022. I named it Willow in my original digital sketch because it resembled more of a willow tree to me. The sides descended further, and there was greater separation between the "leaves" and the "trunk". But I knew it was never quite right, so I kept making adjustments. I played around with making some nodes sharp and pointy, and then round, and then a combination. 



This design started working for me when I shortened up and tapered the sides, and smoothed out the top. Only, then it didn't look like a willow tree anymore, so it needed a new name.



Boho Bulbs draws on a simple, symmetrical, motif both oriented vertically and then inverted to create an interlocking pair that does not need an offset. It's clean and consistent, with just enough personality to keep it from feeling rigid.



This digital edge-to-edge design is great on floral quilt tops like the one shown in here in the blog post. Its simple, geometric nature also...

This is the fourth—and possibly last? (I said that last time) —design of my "Echoed" series. Originally, I created Echoed Swirls, then Echoed Curves. More recently, there was Echoed Circles, and now Echoed Stars!



This design takes after the original Echoed Swirls in its free-motion quilting look. Because of how the design is offset and nested, the rows are not easy to spot, which is why it could look like someone painstakingly fmq'ed it. 😉



I tried to make the stars vary slightly in size, without any of them being too big or too small. I also tried adjusting the tilt of the stars to give it a more organic look.



This design could be used for kids' quilts, modern quilts like this one, or even patriotic quilts. With the simple patchwork and a number of solid fabrics, I thought this quilt top could support quilting that's denser and more complex than with other quilt patterns.

The Quilt

Quilt Pattern

This is the Jelly Stripes quilt by Quilty Love. I finished it in October of 20...

Falling Star is a clamshell variant featuring a stylized star.

That's it! Thanks for visiting my blog! 👋 *waves goodbye*



This design has been hanging out in my sketchbook longer than its cousin Held Hearts (which was an emergency design made specifically for the quilt in the blog post linked above).



What makes this design distinctive is the split at the crown of the clamshell shape. And that split descends into a simplified star shape. Could we call it a twinkle? Yes, let's! The beautiful thing about the split is that it eliminates the need for any backtracking and is its own design element.

What I like about this little twinkle of a shape is that it echoes the same curves as the joining of the clamshells in the row below, nestling in just so.



It's a dainty little design that's meant to sparkle in the background, which is great for a busy, scrappy quilt like this one.

The Quilt

Quilt Pattern

I believe I stumbled upon this quilt pattern and purchased it through Etsy, but I'...

Pendulum is a funky, off-beat, edge-to-edge quilting design perfect for modern quilts! 



Instead of regular intervals of curved lines, this design alternates between thick and thin arch shapes.



It results in a fun, modern texture that looks a bit organic. Two different side-by-side motifs repeat to add some variation.



With the quilt top made entirely of 2"x4" finished rectangles, I wanted the quilting to contrast and not look as uniform as the patchwork.

The Quilt

 This quilt came about because I wanted something EASY to sew during our first-ever Longarm League retreat in September of 2024. Before I left for retreat, I gathered my colorful, solid fabrics and cut a bunch of 2.5" x 4.5" rectangles. That's it! That's all the prep work I was willing to do, knowing my focus would be on chatting and having a good time with other retreaters instead of my time being "production" focused.

To sew the units, I grabbed three rectangles of one color and two of another color, making impromp...

As so often happens, this design evolved as I was working on it. I didn't imagine it as a holiday-adjacent design at first, but I thought it so closely resembled a poinsettia that I leaned into that theme when naming it. Of course, it doesn't have to be used for Christmas, holiday, or winter-themed quilts, but I think it would work well for them.



The circles positioned between the star shapes made me think of a tufted cushion on a couch or a headboard—so much so that I was THISCLOSE to naming the design Hangin' Tuft. This would have been funny, but it made little sense—as if this had stopped me before.



I also started with just the inside star shape between the circles, but I couldn't leave all that space between the motifs, so I employed some echoing to help fill in the gaps and enhance the curves.





I'm much more happy with the evenly balanced result. Echoing almost always "works" whether you are hand-guiding and need to travel to a different part of the quilt, or in a pantogra...

Just so you know, the only thing I was thinking about when I was designing this new edge-to-edge pantograph was hot dog buns! I was going for that rounded shape. In the end, I thought the name Plus sounded more mature than Hot Dog, which was the temporary file name until that final save.



I think this quilt top paired so well with the design! Usually, I have a small stack of quilt tops waiting for a new design to test out, but in this case, I was reminded of the Peanut Butter pattern as I was looking through Instagram posts I'd saved, and I made the quilt top just to use for this Hot Dog—I mean Plus!—design.



The design has just a bit more complexity than I'd like, but I couldn't find a way around it. When the stitch path is almost completed, it pivots direction to backtrack across the top horizontal line of the plus shape on its way to start another repeat. I tried bisecting the design with a straight line through the middle, but I just didn't like the way it looked compared t...

Turnstiles is a simple design that delivers great texture! After I completed this top, I knew I wanted something cute and small scale to use for the quilting.

I struggled with what to call it, so I turned to social media for help and got many great ideas! Two years ago, the design we released was called May Flowers, so even though this is another May release that could very well look like a flower, I knew it needed to be something different.

Another popular name suggestion was Propeller. It makes so much sense, but since we have a design called Propel, I didn't want to confuse them. Whirligig was another popular option, but there are so many other Whirligig pantos out there! 

This is where I shout out Christi on Facebook for suggesting Turnstiles! Thanks, Christi—I liked it right away. It's one word (which I like), unique, and contains 'tiles' as part of the word, which calls back to some other name suggestions because the angled lines do look like tiles.

Perhaps t...

With the Box Tie design, I'm bundling file formats as I've never done before. So, if you received this as part of your membership or as part of the Digital Panto Club or purchased from our shop, please read carefully to find out what is included.
 

Box Tie is a design consisting of alternately situated hourglass shapes. Horizontal and then vertical, back to horizontal and then vertical.

I don't know what I was thinking when I named it. Instead of Bow Tie, I picked Box Tie as I was in the design process and then... never changed it. I'm not proud of this 🫠 - I usually change the name to something more memorable.



But here's what I want YOU to remember about this design.

It acts as a "cheater" cross-hatching design.

Cross-hatching is notoriously difficult to execute as a longarm quilter, mostly because every row has to touch the row above and below it to make it look continuous. We try to make it look as though we marked every line on the quilt top ahead of time and used ru...

What started as a baseball diamond shape morphed into something that looked reminiscent of a graphic for America's National Parks. From there, I repeated the shapes at odd angles so that some secondary and tertiary diamonds emerged, but the "explore" feeling from an imagined poster never left.



What I like about this design is the graphic boldness of straight lines, angles, curves, and circles all playing together.

I found it funny that because I used such low volume AND extremely low contrast fabrics in this quilt, the quilting design pretty much swallowed up the whole quilt pattern! I was shocked by how little I could see the quilt pattern after quilting. Oops!

The Quilt

Believe it or not, this quilt is the Star Pop II quilt by Emily Dennis of Quilty Love. Here it is on my design wall before quilting as proof there were stars involved. Ha!

And then, after quilting:



To be sure, I knew that the patchwork would be subtle. It was intentional. This was a wedding quilt for a...