Originally Posted by Late Bloomer
This is the main reason I would never use a longarm quilter.I am a hand quilter and am horrified by the excessive quilting some longarmers use on quilts. It is almost difficult to see the actual piecing when it is just covered with stitches. To me, this totally destroys the beauty of a quilt and does nothing to enhance it. I also heard horror stories so I think I will stick with my slow, but sure method of handquilting thank you very much! Most longarmers do not understand that less is more and there really is no need to cover a beautiful quilt with the scribbling that is called quilting. Sorry for the soapbox but it is a huge pet peeve of mine. There are good longarmers, but there are a lot of the other kind out there too.
First, to the above, a good longarmer will take your opinions about density of quilting into consideration when choosing a design. It's YOUR quilt, and you should get it back the way you want it. Density is a matter of choice, and I have customers that run the whole range, and their choices have also changed over the past few years and from quilt to quilt.
In December, one of my ladies made some table runners with curved piecing for friends of hers. While she is an extremely experienced quilter making over 12 quilts a year, she struggled with the curved piecing and had lots of cups and waves. She was very unhappy! I told her that I can quilt 'quilt that out', but it would take lots of quilting (which is normally not her preference) and she was fine. When the quilts were done she was thrilled and the table runners looked nice and flat.
Secondly, to the matter at hand, FIND ANOTHER LAer!! There are enough of us out here that you will be able to find someone who does a good job AND doesn't mess with your artistic harmony.