Originally Posted by DebraK
stippling is overated ;-)
I agree with Debra. In my humble opinion, stippling and meandering are overused. I think the quilting should add to the look of the quilt, not just hold the layers together. Some quilts look great with a big meander; others cry out for a totally different quilting design.
I hand quilted for 35 years before I machine quilted anything, so I always ask myself, what designs would I put on this quilt if I was hand quilting it?
That said, there are ways to get a design in your head. Draw, draw, draw again. Draw while on the phone, draw while waiting for the tea water to boil, draw while waiting in the dr's office.
Keep a pad of paper or a small whiteboard and a dry erase marker. Draw the designs you want to quilt often enough, and you build the eye-hand-brain connection. This works for stippling, feathers, vines, leaves, swirls, whatever design you want.
Some people have stippling that looks like a puzzle. Some look more like milkbone dog biscuits or rounded off stars or even toadstools. Mine look sort of like gingerbread men.