Pantographs & quilting from the back of the machine on today’s Watch & Learn Quilting Show EP12

hi welcome to another hq watch and learn today we're going to be talking about all about pantographs so i'm johnny barfis a educator here with hannie quilter with me i'm christina whitney another educator here at handy quilter again we're going to talk about all about pantographs and quilting from behind today so christina is our expert at the pantographs right i will take credit for that today she's definitely our expert everybody's well educated on it so if you come into the handy closer studios for training or basic training we will teach that christine is usually usually the one that teaches that for us let's start first with how to choose a pantograph right how about before that let's explain what a pantograph is oh perfect okay so a pantograph is just a paper piece that covers the entire quilt i mean and it doesn't have to be an all over edge to edge it could be a border piece and you can either do the paper version that you can follow from the back of the machine with a laser or you can also use the computerized systems and those can stitch out a pantograph as well right so for today we're going to talk about the paper pantographs that we use to do an all-over edge to edge design quilting from the back of the machine all right so first let's talk about choosing a pantograph these are printed out on paper and you want to make sure you get the right size as is and uh sorry in relationship to your throat space correct so this one here it says new leaf six inch wide rows this one here says five and a half inch ride rows so that'll be perfect to get basically in any throw space correct about a six inch six inches high right yes but some pantographs come a lot wider and you might not have the appropriate throat space especially after you've advanced your fabric quite a bit and you're at the bottom of your quilt because all of that bulk on this back pole is going to make your throat space smaller right so to avoid that just use a smaller pantograph size yeah and i usually say approximately six is six ish inches less than your machine size but again that's just a wide range if you're using the pantographs for a baby quilt you're not going to have as much roll-up whereas if you're doing a king-sized quilt with a fluffy polyester batting and minky backing you're going to lose a lot more throat space so things to take into consideration when you're purchasing your pantographs awesome okay also to note here so this one here has a registration marks from the roby previously and then one to line up with this is what you'll actually be stitching out and you want to choose something simple if you're just getting started make sure you choose something easy something simple that doesn't cross over a lot this one here you'll notice does cross over just one spot and then again notice these registration marks to line up with the previous row yep right yep sometimes i call them my ghost lines so if i refer to them as ghost lines later on that's what i'm talking about okay our registration lines things to look for in the design when i'm doing pantographs i really like to have curves because they're a little bit smoother going but i also really like to have points points are a place where you can stop with your needle down take a break breathe adjust your foot positioning as you're moving along and then when you start again you're not going to get like a little jagged part in your curve right because it's right on that point so look for points and look for curves okay and this one has a little bit of both it has points and curves let's look at this one just for a moment so this one this one is a little bit trickier it's kind of busy and you'll notice i'm going to trace this with my finger and i tell people to do this anytime before starting a pantograph to actually trace the pattern out and get familiar with it so i'm going to start i'm just going to start here because there's a point there and i'm going to follow it around follow in the design come to another point point and pause on those points also here it's a little bit trickier because i've got multiple lines there that cross and if i were to pause right there say to move my feet or to blink or something when i start again i might not know which direction i was going and since you're in the back of the machine you can't see very well on front i mean you could look over and tell right but for beginning panograph that might be a little bit of a harder thing for them to do okay so so those are just some good things to look at yep right yep okay now show us how you get started with the pantograph on that side okay first of all i'm going to talk about our machine setup so i've got it i've got my quilt top already loaded it is ready to go i've got my machine threaded i'm going to lift that needle up is my needle up there your needle is up okay johnny is my eyes on the front today so i'm going to just move this up and for the settings you can set it on the front of the machine or on the back of your machine and i'm just going to tell you the settings that i found that work best for me as i always tell everybody find what works best for you so for my settings i like to have mine at about 10 to 12 stitches per inch right now i'm at 12 stitches per inch i like to be in regulated because i like those inches to or those stitches to be the same right and i like cruise mode and again personal preference so i i already selected cruise mode and i'm at a speed of about 225 and i like a higher speed just because it helps me flow better as i'm doing this all over design i also really highly recommend that you stop with your needle in the down position so you can actually select that here on your screen so that anytime i stop it's going to hold my place there and i don't have to worry about the machine accidentally bumping or getting moved around right okay what other things can you think of any questions about setting up the machine no i was going to point out the needle down tell us why that is the needle down so that you want to stop the needle down so that when i just stop i don't run the risk of the machine moving okay so it i call it my placeholder okay okay one thing i do want to point out up at the front johnny can you show everybody what foot i have on there you have the glide foot on here this is a piece top and that's going to ensure that just go smoothly over the top right yes and the biggest reason why i like the glide foot when i'm doing pantographs is because i stitch off the edge i'm always going to start about a half an inch to an inch off the side and off the top so that i don't accidentally advance and it's not far enough and i missed a spot it's just security but with this glide foot it also is security because if i have a regular foot on i run the risk of it catching on my basting and i basted this down pretty close to the edge but sometimes it would flip the edges over or get caught somehow so the glide foot just it just glides yeah hence its name colliding it's really good so that that's a little bit of an insurance thing there okay so i've got my machine set up now i need to get my pantograph set up okay she's going to move that over there all right i've already taped my pantograph down onto my table and i like to have mine just flush up against the table because i i know my table is straight right and that's going to keep my design straight it just makes things smooth for me i've taped it down with painters tape other options are covering it with vinyl and then you can do your markings on that vinyl and not directly on the paper so you can reuse it later okay so next thing that i want to do is actually i'm going to draw my pantograph okay i am going to pick a spot and this is just a random spot there's no science behind it and it's you know a little bit of ways to the left of my machine where my laser is going to be and i'm just going to take a regular ruler and i'm going to draw a line down here this line is going to represent about an inch off of my quilt so my actual quilt top might be like over here but this is where i'm going to be stitching to and that is also going to be my travel line okay so that's another reason why i like to be off of the edge of the quilt so that i can travel okay now i'm going to do the same thing drawing a horizontal line i am going pick right about here because i want this part of the design to actually stitch on my quilt so i'm going to draw this line and mine's probably not going to be perfectly straight but you get the the idea of that yeah okay and i would just do that all the way across and that line represents the top of my quilt okay and this is my left hand side of my quilt right so now what i want to do is actually move my machine into position so johnny you're my eyeballs can you move the machine so that the needle is about a half an inch to an inch off the top and off the left hand side of the quilt and just drop the needle there yes right there perfect okay i'm actually going to change my line i should have had the machine in position first but we had moved it so right now my my line's really close to the edge so i'm just going to shift it over okay so sorry for confusing you learn from my mistakes put the needle in first so i'm going to make that be my new left hand and we'll cross that one out all right okay so if you look at this this dot right here or the cross hair where that is is my needle but my light is over here okay i want my light the laser light equals your needle okay okay so i'm going to just adjust my light here you can also if your laser light is like a large beam you can take a screwdriver right in there yeah tighten it down and it will make your beam be a little bit more tight yeah what's the better word pointy i don't know you get the gist a smaller point a smaller dot yes that works okay so that's pretty close for me okay um so now i know that my laser and my machine are matched up yeah so you know you're just refresh or re redo that okay say that you your laser equals your needle laser light equals the needle right okay excellent okay so the next step is to figure out where i want to start quilting okay i'm looking at this pattern here and i'm not going to start quilting here because that's not part of the pattern right so i need to find out where on this pattern i'm going to stitch um so i'm going to come in again follow me with my finger okay that's where i hit it okay right there that's going to be my start point and i'm just going to put a little circle right there and i'm going to move this over out of my way okay so i would lift up my needle move my machine so that the laser is now where my horizontal line from the left side of my quilt that i drew crosses that design okay i'm going to drop the needle there i'm going to pull it back or have you pull up my bobbin for me okay it's called the buddy system it works nicely okay i got your bobbin up okay so fingers clear i'm gonna do a tie off excellent okay so i'm ready to stitch okay just a couple pointers before i actually start stitching i want to look ahead of where i'm going i don't want to be looking it's like driving a car okay you're looking far distance you're not looking at the bumper of the car right in front of you right same thing with quilting we want to be looking ahead and anticipating what's going to come next if no let me rephrase that when you go off of the line don't jerk the machine back just gradually bring it back and make it smooth the best part about doing pantographs is that this paper this design does not go with this quilt to whoever you're giving it to right nobody's gonna know if you went off the line a little bit unless you jerk it back and make a really crazy look right so those are a couple of tips okay i'm gonna stitch just a little bit and i'm gonna have you check my tension we should adjust tension prior to doing this but i'm just going to have you check make sure everything's working properly okay so i'm going to stand just a little bit to the left of my machine to start elbows are in and shoulders down i'm breathing and let's stitch [Applause] okay i'm going to stop right there and i don't want to continue following that line because it's off the side and i don't want to hit clamps or anything that's out of there so remember earlier i called that my travel line right i'm just going to travel right up that line to the next section and continue on [Applause] okay i'm gonna stop at a point johnny how does everything look up there it looks great your tension looks nice feels good okay yep you're good um one other tip when you're stitching from the back you can't see if your thread breaks up at the front so you can watch your thread right here if the thread's not coming up you know something is wrong okay that's a great tip okay i'm breathing again ready to go [Applause] [Music] [Applause] okay stopping at a point i'm going to shift my feet a little bit after you've done pantographs for a while you can move your feet while you're in motion but to start just stop with the needle down reposition and then you're ready to go again any other tips that i'm forgetting to mention before i keep on going i don't think so i think you should go for it go for it okay here we go [Applause] okay you can see i'm at the end of my quilt now but i forgot to draw my stopping line so before you ever start quilting you should also bring the machine over to the edge of the right hand side of your quilt top and mark a line here also so i'm going to show you how to do that real quick and then i'll finish up this side so right now my laser light is right on the very edge of my quilt and i want to go off by about half an inch so i'm just going to set my ruler down make it about half an inch off and i'm going to now draw my line which represents the right hand side of my quilt and you'll notice that i still need to quilt this section here and this section here so i'm going to use that travel line so let me show you that real quick pausing at the point coming up i'm going to travel down the line coming around travel up the line and travel back and now is my whole first row right off the quilt excellent i'm going to take a tie off stitch there and i'm going to have johnny pull up my bob and thread for me so if you don't have an assistant quilting with you which i highly recommend everyone get yourself a quilting assistant but if you don't have that luxury you can just run around the front to clip your thread and then you'll go back to the next row so let's now talk about right advancing yes um i actually have enough room in my throat space that i can stitch another one so i'm not going to advance the fabric itself okay i think i've got enough room you should i should have plenty of room but i only have one row on this design okay so i need to advance the design to get it set up so i can do the next one right so we talked earlier about this registration line or the ghost line that is the row that we just quilted after we advance it so what i'm going to do is i want to find a point i like to kind of go in the middle of my quilt i'm going to find this point so i'm going to take it up to the point where i was just quilting i'm going to drop my needle there actually i am not going to drop my needle there because we're not actually going to let's show them how to advance the fabric while we're at it yeah let's do that let's do it okay so i'm going to drop my needle there and we're going to take clamps off okay i'll grab this side a lot of pantographs will actually come with two rows that you can stitch and so if you have throat space you can do both of them at the same time so let's go ahead and we'll advance i'll pull this up needle is down so the fabric is moving and if you watch here oops sorry the laser light is moving so instead of it being up here it's moving and i want the laser light to come to that point representing the row that i've already quilted okay so so how close are we we're getting there and i'm going to take it just a tiny bit past it and then when you tighten up those first two just a little bit my needle or my laser light is on that point of the ghost line that represents this row that i already stitched all right perfect okay so now when we put back the side clamps right yes i'm going to lift the needle up because i don't like to move the machine and forget the needles down from the back and i'm going to just check a couple places so johnny i'm going to move my machine and is that pretty close to a point yes it is okay excellent yep so as i'm checking i also have to remember that when i was quilting i might not have hit that point exactly on the the paper here so it might be off by just a little bit but we're just kind of getting it in the general area right okay that looks good i saw you stop with that one that looks good as well perfect so we're going to do the exact same thing i'm going to come up to this next starting point needle down needle up bring up my bobbin thread and then stitch out the next row okay and after each row i could advance i do want to show one other thing with repositioning if say your laser light got bumped or something went off okay okay so what i'm going to do is um i just had you bring up the bobbin and do a tie off but we're just going to kind of drag it around i'm not going to quilt that one right now okay let me cut that off for you it is really nice having a quilting buddy especially when they giggle yes get yourself a quilting buddy okay i'm i'm gonna mess up my laser here oh man my laser is now not matched up with what i've already quilted right so i'm john i'm johnny johnny i'm going to have you move the machine so that the needle is on one of those points okay that we've already quilted right i'm going to go to this point right here and it's the top okay where it goes up into that point so it's that point right there okay so now i'm just going to adjust my laser light and now it is repositioned with what i've already quilted yeah and you could just drop your needle there like i could drop my needle run around laser okay yeah so putting the needle down for positioning is a great thing to do but please remember to lift the needle up before you move the quilt because you don't want to rip a hole in your quilt or bend a needle throw your timing off any of that fun stuff but that's a great great tip for doing pantographs awesome okay anything else we need to cover about pantographs one thing i was thinking about while i was actually stitching is i can't remember if i mentioned when you come into a point you want to pause let that machine have a time to make those stitches and that is actually why i prefer to use cruise mode because the needle will continually move if i'm in precision and i come into a point that needle might not go down in that point and it doesn't matter how long i pause there the needle's not going to go down if i'm not moving the machine right so cruise mode is my my motive okay excellent so okay well i think that's it thank you so much for watching our watch and learn this week be sure to tune in next week we'll have more pointers in your uh help you all on your quilting journey be sure to like this and subscribe to our youtube channel if you haven't already and share with your friends who enjoy quilting and above all have fun quilting this week

Channel: Handi Quilter

Views: 10,431

Rating: 4.9892473 out of 5

Keywords: Handi Quilter, Longarm, Sewing, Quilting, Quilts, Free-motion Quilting, Finishing Quilts, quilter, longarm quilt, quilting tips

Id: 70T7yhO6f9g

Length: 23min 19sec (1399 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 30 2020