Longarm Quilt Designs
In the book, we briefly went over the process of longarm quilting, so let’s dive into it a little more here. Longarm machines are used specifically for quilting and are usually loaded with computerized quilt designs, known as pantos (short for pantographs). The machine can either stitch your selected quilt design repeatedly from one end of your quilt to to the other (called edge-to-edge quilting) or allow for customization, giving the longarm quilter more control of where a quilt design begins and ends. If you don’t own one or have access to these bulky machines, check to see if you have a longarm quilter in you area. They provide services that will do the quilting for you. Best of all, the basting steps are different on a longarm machine. That means, you won’t have to do the basting, either! 😱
Trace Creek Quilting
When you hire a longarm quilter to quilt your project, you typically choose a quilt design from their library. For most of the book’s quilt-size samples, I partnered up with Lilo of Trace Creek Quilting. It can feel nerve-racking to send your quilt top off to a longarmer for the first time, but I’ve been collaborating with Lilo for years, so I know my tops are in good hands. She’s wonderful to work with and delivers fantastic results. For your reference, the following is a list of pantos I chose for each project. You can check out more quilt designs at Trace Creek Quilting. Her website has a wide selection of pantos to choose from, many of which include a photo sample to give you an idea of how the quilt design might look on your own project!
Lake quilt with Navajo panto
Edge-to-Edge Pantographs Used
Navajo (Lake)
Straight Line (Lake Mini solids version)
Rolling Hills Echoed (Lake Mini printed fabrics)
Modern Waves (Coastal)
Ikat (River)
Straight Line (Meadow)
Sashiko Star (Mountain in Blue)
Random Clams (Woodland)
Custom Quilting
Custom quilting using a variety of designs to highlight each section of the quilt.
For custom longarm quilting services, I shipped my quilt tops to Mindy of Wild Phil Quilting. She offers edge-to-edge services as well, but I just love it when her custom service becomes available because she’s so great at choosing the quilting designs for me. She did the Mountain in Purple and the Canyon projects in the book.
Cost of Longarm Quilting Service
Though I love the satisfaction of completing a project by myself from start to finish, I’m just not a fan of quilting with my domestic sewing machine. Personally, I find that it’s not a powerful tool for quilting large projects.
Is it possible to slice a cucumber with a miter saw? Yes. Use a chef’s knife in lieu of a box cutter? Sure. But, they weren’t built for those purposes. This is similar to how I feel about quilting large projects on my home sewing machine. 🤪
Longarm quilting requires time, effort, and skill so it’s up to you whether it’s worth the investment or not. In my case, longarm quilters have saved me from taking another trip to a physical therapist, or being out of commission because I pulled a muscle (I have chronic back issues). For me: totally worth it!
River quilt with Ikat panto