If you are a longarm quilter the answer is NO! ;) If you are quilter you also love to look at patterns and choose that special one to put the final touch on your pieced quilt top. There are thousands of patterns out there. Some more complex, some simple, echoing factors, sharp points, rounded points, ect....
I recently added a few (dozen or so) to my website and I thought I would share a few here and show how a pattern can add that extra touch to your quilt top.
Flowering Roses, Art Doodles, and Soft and Sweet are examples of Border to Border
E2E, B2B, P2P, Digital Pantographs...what does it all mean??
The three patterns above, I consider B2B patterns meaning they fill in across the quilt top in all four directions (left-right top-bottom) when a row is stitched and not much nesting needed when placing the digital patterns on the computer screen before stitching out the row.
Lanterns, Modern Curves, Sea Turtles are good examples of Edge to Edge
Edge to Edge patterns are usually rows that need to be nested together to some degree or you will have large spaces that are unquilted and not very attractive looking... :) Nesting them gives a look of all-over-even quilting across the entire quilt top. As a longarm quilter we also "tweek" the pattern in other ways to "fill" the top, side edges, and bottom row of your quilt top to get all those open spaces quilted.
These three quilts are examples of E2E quilting with above patterns.
Amazing how quilting give so much texture to flat quilt tops. Every time I quilt something it becomes my "new" favorite! :) The quilt in the middle with the little rocket ships, I loaded the quilt sideways and quilted Modern Curves so it would give movement to the rocket ship flying upwards. What do you think?? :)
Ginger Flower, Two Hearts, Baptist Fan are examples of Place two Pins.
P2P patterns are like E2E except the registration marks for the pattern end resides at the top. Longarm Quilters have to mark both right and left registration point before we can advance the quilt (roll) to stich out the next row. This helps us with alignment on the following rows.
Examples of the Baptist Fan P2P pattern. One is very densely quilted and one is with it enlarged and more open.
There are so many patterns to choose from it can become a daunting task. Talk with your favorite longarm quilter...we love to talk about patterns and what would look good!! Sometimes, if you see pattern chances are we have it, (or will get it) so don't be afraid to ask. Most of us list favorites, go-to-patterns, or most popular at the time on websites because it can get overwhelming.
I had hundreds of preloaded patterns on my Gammill Statler when I got it. Urban Elementz
( Urban Elementz.com ) and Anne Bright ( Edge To Edge – Anne Bright Designs ) are a couple places I get patterns from, but there are so many more digital designers out there coming up with the next best pantograph pattern for your quilt top!
Until next time, Happy Quilting!
Michelle
www.seashellquilting.com