Groove Digital Pantograph Design

The inspiration for the Groove design came from the subtle curve of lava lamps. I really liked the idea of non-symmetrical, gentle curves contained within the straight lines and perpendicular angles that "house" the lava lamp shapes.

Do I detect a "mid-century modern" vibe here? It wasn't intentional but I also wouldn't be mad about that. Not one bit!

The orientation of the design is more of a vertical nature, which just doesn't seem to be as common with digital edge-to-edge options. Much like the 'positive', sometimes you want to ac-cen-tuate the vertical! 

The repeated motif is staggered, meaning that when it comes to setting it up with your computerized system, you will not need to offset. Just close the gap between the rows and you'll be good-to-go. The stitch path can be viewed in the video at the top of this post. There is some backtracking, but overall it has a smooth and fluid stitch path.

This design would be great on modern quilt tops or like I mentioned earlier "mod" tops in MCM (mid-century modern), retro kind of way.




Here are the specifications for how I set up this design using my Intelliquilter on a baby-sized quilt sample (40" x 50" quilt size):

Row height: 5"
Gap: -2.353"*
Pattern height: 7.353" (measurement from top to bottom of the repeat)
Offset: none
Backtracking: some

*Gap refers to the space I set between rows. This is a measurement that's quantified in the setup screen for IQ, so I like to include it for other Intelliquilter users.

As I noted in the included PDF (viewed below), at this scale, the echoed curved lines are approximately .25" apart. You could definitely scale up the size so that the lines would be a little further apart. 

Here's a look at the included PDF:

I do have a word of caution based on what I learned from the sample stitch-out.  When vertical lines are echoed like this, they do have a tendency to cause the fabric to draw-in. I also saw this happen with another design of mine called Deco Arch, which also favors the vertical orientation. If you have a wide quilt, I'd size up to a larger scale than what I've shown in this sample so that the overall result isn't as dense.

If you're interested, I talk about fabric draw (draw-up, draw-in, shrinkage) and what might be done to compensate for that here.

If you use Groove on a quilt, we'd love for you to use the hashtag #groovepanto and tag @longarmleague on Instagram so we can see what you're up to! 

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