Wishbone History

Do you know how long I've been meaning to write a blog post about Wishbone? Well, I started this draft in August of 2020. The design was a few years old by that point.

Wishbone is the first design I ever released to the public in September 2019, mere weeks after the Longarm League membership started for the first time. I designed it the prior year due to the frustration of not being able to find a design simply referred to as 'Loops' by some Statler Stitcher owners I followed on Instagram.



I spent hours combing the Internet with the intent to buy the looped design, but resorted to making a version of my own when I couldn't locate it. This gave me a chance to use my Intelliquilter's editing tools to create the must-have elements that I wanted: 60º angled lines and meaty "teardrop" shapes that would nest with the rows above and below.

The resulting design lived on my tablet for a long while until I bought Art and Stitch software and was able to export it, s...

This design called Fancy Feathers is a digital pantograph design that was released to Longarm League members in February 2020. Our designs are not exclusive to members, though. Anyone can buy our pantographs from our shop. 

My story as a longarm quilter began by operating a non-computerized APQS machine. I was able to apply the quilting motifs I had practiced so hard to master on my domestic sewing machine by "translating" them to free-motion quilting on a longarm. This feather design came about from yet again "translating" the fmq design to a digital, repeatable pantograph. 

I really wanted to make the rows as invisible as possible, and so I created diamond-like repeats. This means that when setting up the design digitally, every other row needs to be offset at 50% and then nested closely so the gaps aren't too obvious.

I think the multidirectional feathers help disguise the repeats and the rows. The dynamic feathers—some are big and long, some are small and...