Echoed Curves Digital Pantograph Design

Introducing Echoed Curves! 



Let me tell you, I felt some internal pressure after I finished this quilt top to pick the perfect pantograph for ALL of that negative space! 

I also wanted to use this quilt to test a new design. So, I went through some sketches I'd been working on in my design software and identified this one as being complementary for the funky curves of the patchwork. I love the texture of the quilting, especially when echoed lines are used. There's a magic texture-compounding effect that happens when echoing is present.

I was so happy when I stitched this out for the first time and it worked! Not in the technical sense - I knew I could stitch it out as designed, but in a "I'm glad I made this choice" kind of work. 

Naming a design can be the hardest part for me! I have a design named Echoed Swirls, so I thought Echoed Curves would be the next in an "echoed" series, albeit four years later. ;)

The Quilt

This is the famed Free Wheeling Single Girl pattern by Denyse Schmidt. When I say it's been on my quilting bucket list, I mean that I've wanted to make one from the very first time I became aware of it. I don't know how long it's been around, but I've been a longtime admirer. At a retreat earlier this year, a group of us decided to make it together. What a great reason to jump in!

The longarm quilter in me loves all the negative space for quilting. That was one reason I've been drawn to the pattern, but it's also so stylish and modern-looking! I don't sew curves very often, which was one of the reasons it took me so long to go for it.



In anticipation of the retreat, I checked out my friend Meg's online shop called Monograms For Makers. She carries most (if not all) of the Bella solids from Moda. I knew I wanted a solid background color, but I didn't know which color to choose. I selected Dutch Blue, which may have been a new color in the Bella lineup at the time. Once I received the fabric, I decided to pull print fabrics from my shelves containing pink and peach colors. I loved how they looked against the solid blue!

The pattern contains instructions for making your own cutting templates, which is what I did. I believe there are also acrylic templates available for purchase, but I went the fast and cheap route and printed them out on my home printer, glued them onto a file folder for added thickness, before cutting them out and using them for the block components. All things considered, the pattern was much more approachable than I anticipated! I even found it fun to deviate from my normal "vanilla" patchwork style (meaning straight 1/4" seams).

I decided to make the twin size listed in the pattern, which was 3 circles across by 4 circles down, but there were a few other friends at the retreat who made a smaller size by omitting the last row of circles. My quilt ended up being 65" x 86.5", when it could have been 65"x65". But since that wasn't a size option listed on the cutting chart, it didn't even occur to me to make it smaller. By the time I hand-cut all the block components using my templates, I was too stubborn not to include all of the blocks in the quilt. If I were to make this pattern again, I think I'd go the 65" square route.

The Cuddle backing was purchased from the famous Olive Juice quilt shop in Onalaska, Wisconsin. That has also been a longtime destination shop I've wanted to visit, so it was fitting to cross off all the "someday" items with this quilt. I always love how minky fabrics show off the quilting on the back!

The Quilting Particulars

Echoed Curves is a straightforward E2E design. It's easy to setup and stitch, with no backtracking and a small gap between rows.

I love the multi-directional look.  In fact, I loaded this long quilt top on its side so that I wouldn't have to advance the quilt as many times as if I had loaded it the conventional way. I love pantos that allow that flexibility for efficiency. The pantograph design isn't exactly the same when rotated, but it also is not going to look "wrong" viewing it from any angle.

Here are the sizing specifications for how I set up this sample quilt size using my Intelliquilter (65" x 86.5" quilt size):

Row height: 4.5"
Gap: -1.196" 
Pattern height: 5.696" (measurement from top to bottom of the repeat)
Offset: none
Backtracking: none

Here's a look at the included PDF:

If you use Echoed Curves on a quilt, we'd love for you to use the hashtag #echoedcurvespanto and tag @longarmleague on Instagram so we can see how you use it! 

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