Shields is a digital pantograph design by Jess Zeigler (that's me!) for Longarm League.

I find myself frequently recommending pantos comprised of simple shapes, especially for quilt tops that have a lot of piecing, color, and/or fabrics. I find these simpler quilting designs to be the most versatile because they have a way of bringing calm and a cohesive element to a "busy" top. They lend beautiful texture without complicating the quilt.

This little motif reminded me of an abstract and somewhat asymmetrical shield. Or scales. Panning out and looking at the overall effect resembled a braid of some kind. 

As you can see from the video of the stitch-out at the top of this post, there is only a tiny bit of backtracking. When you set up the design in your computerized system, it does not need any offsetting.

When quilting this baby-sized sample approximately 45" x 50", I set the row height at 2.5" and used a gap of -0.512" for a total pattern height of 3.012". I ...