My Dumptruck Pantograph

A local fabric store was selling these cute little panels and I was asked by two quilters to quilt one for each of them. They were excited when I said I could quilt trucks on them, so with two to do, I invested the time to create a pantograph of dump trucks.

When I create my own pantographs, I use a very basic method. I draw my design element out, outline it in a fine black line with a Sharpie, then I print multiple photocopies of the image. I cut the excess white background away from around the edges of the image and then lay them out on paper I cut from a roll. Once I am happy with the layout, I tape the individual images down and add marker lines to create a continuous line of quilting.

This is a fairly antiquated way to create pantos, considering I could be creating digitized ones on my computer if I had the right software, but I actually enjoy this process. I am able to enlarge or reduce my designs and I can flip them and reverse them. And it allows me time to study how pantos are designed and how to best create a flow for the stitching line to follow. 

As well, I sometimes enlist the use of my opaque projector, or even my overhead projector when I want to enlarge a design and adjust it to the size I find best suits the quilt top I am working on. My opaque projector was one of the first tools I purchased when I started out in the sign business and even this many years later, I still find lots of uses for it.

Both clients provided me with Fireside for the backing and 80/20 cotton batting.