Originally Posted by SharonAnne
I am glad for this discussion because as a new quilter, I have been baffled about the quilting part. Granted, I have yet to take a class, but I have done a lot of looking at pictures on this board. I love each and every one of the quilts/projects I have seen, and the quilting of feathers, curliques, etc is exquisite, but still, I am afraid to do it. As an example, I am attaching a picture that I still do not know what to do with. I think it is beautiful "as is" and am scared to ruin the simplicity and beauty of the cat by running thread all over him. Small projects such as potholders and placemats can "take" and often demand a lot of stippling, but I want this quilt to be natural. So, my dilemna is - should I or shouldn't I do anything but SID on this one. Can't make up my mind, thus this has sat as a UFO since February, 2010. I don't need it until Christmas, so I still have some time to deal with it. And this is my problem with all my projects. Is less more? Is more too much? Does this come with experience or is it a personal like/dislike thing? Thanks for listening and for your potential comments. Oops, how do I put my photo here?
I would outline the tigers and some of the leaves in the tiger squares. In the blue, I would copy some of the flowers with leaves. All the rest I would do in the ferny leaves shown on the fabric. I frequently take the designs in the fabric and translate them into the quilting I do, both on my own quilts and on customer's quilts.
When I quilt for customers, I will suggest different designs for their quilts if I think what they are asking for will detract from the beauty of the piecing. Most of my customers now just give me a price point and let me do what I want. It's nice to be trusted, sometimes scary since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but my goal is to always enhance the beauty of their piecing with my quilting. I'll be the first to admit, I love McTavishing!!! Rarely do it on customer quilts because it is very time consuming and expensive for them and uses a TON of thread! Wholecloth quilting is the time for my quilting to shine, on pieced quilts the quilting should just let the piecing shine!