Quiltingboard Forums - Pantograph Storage/Organization Help Needed!

If you work with Pantos a lot, any help you can give me is appreciated. I think I will be doing about half free hand, maybe learn some ruler stuff, and half my time on Pantos.

I bought a new-to-me long arm a while back and am finally getting it set up! It is non-computerized but set up for either free-motion/ruler quilting or pantographs. I have enough physical space so I will be able to access either side. Hooray, long delay but dealing with vision loss and other issues put it on the back burner for a long time.

The quilter I got it from was at the end of her Long Arm career and I got all sorts of extras and nice stuff, including some nice 2-drawer chests that go under the long arm stand to hold the pantographs. There are a LOT, like maybe a hundred?? And since I didn't buy them myself, I don't really know what I have yet.

My plan is to sort the pantos by size, and roughly see what I have that way, and to sort them into the drawers. Currently it is random as far as I can tell. I got some office sticky dots in different colors, my idea is to mark the outside of the drawer with a Size Dot -- so say 6" repeats are Red Dot. Then I will put a dot on each panto and number them.

Once I have the sizes and dots sorted out, I plan to use the scanner on my printer and scan an image. I work well with notebooks so will print out a standard paper size of the design to put in the notebook. I'll also do a spread sheet just as a contents thing -- but also so I can find specific designs quickly without going through the whole book. It won't be quick...

I think for the way my mind works -- this seems reasonable! Yeah, this is a lot of work and effort, but at the end I will know (a) what I have and (b) a usable tool to find them again :)

Any suggestions for the process or other ways to sort? I think for me that size is the best way for most of them. The spread sheet will have a space for the actual pattern name as well as a descriptive, so I would be able to quickly find subject categories. The notebook will allow me to write notes or comments on the patterns too.