Have you ever done a 100 day challenge? The concept is that you create something every day for 100 days to “explore the impact of daily repetition on creative output”. I’m in the middle of one right now, called the #100daypantodesignchallenge, run by @thequiltingmill on Instagram. I’m up to about day 30 (I’ve lost count already) and have created more pantographs than I can keep in my mind at one time.
For the uninitiated, a pantograph is a pattern used by a longarm quilter to put beautiful stitching onto patchwork to create a quilt! Niche, I know.
It’s not my first 100 day challenge. I did the “100 days 100 blocks” the year the Kinship Sampler came out from Gnome Angel. I did a 100 day challenge through Aotearoa Quilters in 2020 where I explored improv piecing, leading to several improv quilts and the odd teaching gig. But this, a panto design challenge, is by far the most rewarding.
Because I really enjoy the software side of using my Statler, (CS7), I invested in a program that can make pantographs, turn them to stitches, and translate them into formats that other longarm quilting machines can use. That turned out to be a whole ‘nother learning curve because all the commands I was acquainted with got moved to different keys! Ugh.
This 100 day project, however, has me spitting out quilting designs faster than I can count!
Backing up a couple of months, I did an excellent Digital Pantograph Design Course with the Barbie Mills of The Quilting Mill. In fact, the first part of my 100 days was finishing her course material. Although I’d mastered the software in a general sense, and even created some designs for my own quilts… this course gave me the skills and confidence to create quilting designs AND SELL THEM. Which, (just quietly), had been my goal all along, I just didn’t know how to go about it.
So, 30 days into this project, I have:
Learned how to use Canva
Posted almost daily on IG
Started a crash course about Pinterest
Revised my website
Opened an Etsy shop
Realised that designing patterns is easy, compared to naming them
I have not:
Cooked very much
Wanted to clean the bathroom
Sewn any quilty things, apart from testing my patterns on my longarm
Sold any patterns at the time of writing
I’m really looking forward to seeing how the rest of this challenge evolves, and me along with it. If you’re thinking of tackling a 100day challenge, I highly recommend it. If you’ve read this far, thanks for the visit, and have a look at some of the designs that I’ve been making lately.
