With a 9" throat machine you can only use about a 5-6" panto. The takeup of the quilt uses some of the space in the throat. I use pantograms but would like to have the circles and baptist fan in the ez boards.

so i guess nobody is going to tell us what groovy boards and pantos are?

A panto is a paper pattern used in LA quilting and placed on a table behind the machine. You follow the design with a laser light and the machine stitches that design. A groovy board or EZ board is about 3 feet in length and has grooves in the shape of quilting designs carved in the board. You follow with a stylus much the same as the laser light and the design is stitched. With a board you need more than one to complete the length of the quilt or you have to stop and move it whereas with the paper panto you have about a 10 foot length to work with. Boards are expensive, pantos aren't so expensive. Does this help? :)

Thank you Greensleeves yes it does, Happy Christmas and Quilting. Loopywren

Two quilting friends had their hubbies make groovy boards for them that went all the way across the back of the machine. No moving the groovy boards. They really loved the results too. Of course it was much less expensive. Oh yeah, the hubbies really supported them after doing that work.

ali

wow! thanks for the info. for those of us that are neofites it really helps to get an idea of what everyone is doing - even if it is light years from where we are at.

I had a woodworking friend build my quilt frame (12 feet long) and I love it but I'm not real steady using Pantos. I liked that you friends hubby's made their groovy boards. Could you tell me what type of wood they used or what was the material they used and was it done with a router? Appreciate your guidance in this matter. You can email me at [email protected]

Have you checked out the paper pantographs at www.annebright.com I really enjoy them.

How can these work with an ordinary domestic machine? I see so many beautiful pictures on here of perfect quilting and design and have marvelled at the standard. Are these pantograms the secret? Are these re-usable like a plastic template? Sorry, please excuse my ignorance, unfortunately am struggling to visualise how I could use something like this to improve my own quilting.

I don't think the pantographs can be used with a regular sewing machine, with the mid arm or long arm set ups, the machine moves (thus can follow the pattern) vs the quilt being moved on a home sewing machine.
However, you can make a long template to stitch a border, or a centre motif. If it's a centre motif, drawn one 100 % size you want, stack wax paper squares the same size together, stitch pattern (without thread). This punches the pattern onto each square. You then iron the squares onto your quilt top, stitch (with thread) and then pull the paper off. For a long stretch/border, you find your repeat, drawn once onto a long strip of wax paper, fold the paper into accordian folds the size of your repeat and then stitch (without thread) so you have a template. Iron into place, stitch (with thread) and tear paper off.

I hope this is helpful, if you need more detail, please PM me.

GEMRM