Way back: Longarm quilt #2 - This One's For Daniel

This is the very first quilt I did on my Longarm for someone. It was for my first grandson – a shower gift before he was even born!

Somehow, I only got one picture of it. :( 

When I got my longarm, I practiced on muslin, then I did a panel that I call “Is there something to do?” that I blogged about back in August.

Danny's quilt is also the first pantograph I ever did. A pantograph is a quilting design that's drawn out repeatedly on a really long roll of paper that sits on a shelf at the back of the longarm machine. You look at the paper and use a laser light attached to the top of the machine to trace the design. As you move the machine, it sews the design on the quilt. Maybe I should add a picture of the setup, huh?

The panto I used for this quilt is called double bubble and I had trouble doing nice round shapes. It makes me so nervous trying to trace the panto that I don’t do them often.

I also prefer to quilt from the front so I can see what’s going on with the quilt. You can get a little off on the panto as you’re moving across the quilt and you’ll have overlap (yes, I’ve had this happen).

This was a kit that I bought from my LQS thequiltersmarket.com . The small faux 4-patch pieces were blanket stitched on with a variegated thread. Overall, I think it turned out cute.

TIP: A different way to use pantos - Trace around a panto design many, many, many times to get muscle memory and then do the design freehand. This seems to work much better for me. I talk about this next time!