Clamorama Mandala Designs

Some of Pro-Stitcher Pattern’s most popular selling designs are from the Clamorama Sets. The traditional clamshell quilting motif transforms when paired with interesting modern design lines within each clamshell.

We are here to tell you, you can do MORE with those fun shapes. This short demo is for an intermediate longarm quilter. Give it a try!

How to Make a Clamshell Mandala

There are classes and YouTube videos on making these designs specifically for your sizes, longarm system, and desired finished look. This is a brief overview to ignite the creative juices.

Note: This tutorial is made in Pro-Stitcher Designer, though many other design software options will work.

Start with a few designs from the Clamorama Volume 1, 10-Piece Set open on your longarm robotic system or in design software.

Choose one design to rotate a total of 12 times. If you are using a product like Pro-Stitcher Designer, which can save designs in all robotic formats, choose the Carousel Tool.

If you are manually repeating the design:

• Copy
• Paste
• Rotate new instance 30-degrees
• Copy
• Paste
• Rotate new instance 30-degrees

Repeat these steps until the 12-unit circle is complete.

Select the entire circular design and resize it to your needs.

Repeat the steps above, choosing a different clamshell design and changing the number of instances the design will appear.

If working with a copy, paste, rotate environment, determine the amount to rotate each piece by dividing 360 by  the number of instances.

For example, the orange shown below is repeated a total of 6 times. Each piece is rotated (360/6) or 60-degrees.

Continue resizing each design ring and auditioning each ring in different positions. Notice in the design below, the inner mandala’s pearl/circle arches will look unrecognizable at this scale. Let’s switch it back.

The green simple ring is Clamorama Design Plain Jane and is just the traditional clamshell arch. When repeated 12 times it creates a beautiful flower design. The purple ring of designs is resized to nest directly into the green arches.

PS Patterns has companion Mandala Frames to finish this wholecloth piece. There are three different “edge types” from which to choose depending your design preferences. We are using Block Set A with 12 waving edges around the inner frame.

For our sample design, we selected all pieces of artwork in the mandala and rotated the entire unit 15-degrees to allow the frame to line up properly with the arched clamshells.

The piece is ready to stitch. Save this design! Be mindful of the longarm throat space and plan to stop or pause the quilting when needed.

In the case of the large Mandala Frame, consider cutting or cropping the design (once as shown in red and once as shown in blue) and saving each half of the digital design for quilting on shorter systems.

As with all quilts and designing, the possibilities are endless. Let your imagination flow and don’t be afraid to click all the buttons!

We cannot wait to see your projects. Use the hashtag #prostitcher when sharing.

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