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Craft to Career

Barbie Mills on Pantograph Design, Longarm Quilting, and Growing a Quilting Business

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What if you could see how a pantograph will look on your quilt before you ever load it on the frame? Barbie Mills, longarm quilter and pantograph designer behind The Quilting Mill, joins the podcast to share how she built her business and the tool she created to help quilters choose their quilting with confidence.

Barbie has loved sewing since she was a little girl and made her first quilt as a teenager. She studied Family and Consumer Science in college and taught in public schools for seven years before turning her love of quilting into a full time business. In 2012, she began longarm quilting by hand, and when she added a computerized system to her studio, she discovered a new passion: designing digital pantographs. Her designs are known for minimal to no backtracking, so they stitch out smoothly and efficiently.

Barbie's newest project is her Pantograph Preview Tool. Upload a photo of your quilt, and you can try different pantograph designs, thread colors, and sizes to see what each would look like before you stitch. She also teaches a class for quilters who want to design pantographs of their own.

Barbie lives in Utah with her family and is an active member of the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild.

In this episode, you'll hear:

  • How Barbie went from teaching Family and Consumer Science to running her own quilting business
  • What led her from hand guided longarm quilting to designing digital pantographs
  • Why she designs pantographs with little to no backtracking
  • How the Pantograph Preview Tool works, and how it helps quilters and longarm clients choose a design
  • What it takes to design your own pantographs, and how her class teaches it
  • Barbie's advice for growing a quilting business of your own

Connect with Barbie:

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