This design started with me trying to figure out how to do a "cheater" double cross-hatch design without making the rows match up perfectly. Brittany of Lo and Behold Stitchery featured this quilt, where she did the double cross-hatch quilting on her domestic machine, and I thought it would be great to have an alternative edge-to-edge design for longarm quilters that wasn't too difficult to execute, since cross-hatching is infamous for being hard to line up.

For a single-line cross-hatch version, I'm biased, but I think it's tough to beat the Rumble design with a 50% offset on a quilt loaded sideways. Here's what it looks like:



But, back to the double cross-hatch inspo!

I came up with a super simple repeatable design that wouldn't have to be lined up exactly because the rows wouldn't have to touch. I stitched out a small sample:

Before I put more work into preparing the design for release, I uploaded a photo to Google Lens to check for visual similarities. Several designs ...

Feeling groovy? Our newest edge-to-edge design brings a healthy dose of retro rhythm and abstract movement to your quilts. Meet Modra, a modern meandering classic in the making.
 


This design originated as an interpretation of a city skyline—if you can believe it—with all rectangular shapes and mostly 90º angles. I wanted different sizes and shapes of "buildings", but when it looked very sharp and uninviting, I changed the line nodes to smooth in my software and was delighted! I loved the "ribbon candy" of it all, maintaining the irregular intervals and sizes.

I couldn't help but think it hinted at a mid-century look. It's quirky but polished, free-flowing but intentional. There are places where the stitch path overlaps slightly. 

I chose to quilt Modra on this quilt top because of the variation of the lines. I generally don't like to put simple repeated E2E designs on a quilt made of only 2" squares. I prefer some variety when the patchwork is uniform.

Modra stitches like...

Migrate is a digital pantograph design that came about as I played with the elongated, mirrored "wing" shapes you see here. Only after looking at it for a while did it remind me of a minimalist butterfly shape and that's where the name came from.

But you don't have to like butterflies to use this design on a quilt top! It's abstract enough to work on a lot of different styles. It would even work for a mid-century modern look.

There is some backtracking involved in this design, so if you're curious about that, watch the video of the stitch-out at the top of this blog post.

 

The Quilt

I have to admit, I pieced this quilt top specifically to test a different pantograph design. I loaded it up and quilted three rows of the intended design until I was sure it was a no-go. Sometimes my ideas on the computer don't quite translate well to real-life applications. It's a bummer, but that's life. That means more tweaking is needed until I'm happy with the design or it'll get scra...