(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...