Being a longarm quilter, quilting for others who most often say "you're the expert, quilt whatever you think will look best" ;it is a questions that I ask myself about every day. When the fabrics are beautiful and busy and the quilting stitches are not going to show very much,I usually pick an overall design (panto). Choosing maybe flowers for a woman's quilt, maybe swirls or circles for a man's quilt. I will try to capture an element from the fabrics into the quilting stitches. Outline stitching looks lovely, stitching 1/4 inch from the pieced seams. And it will call attention to the piecing. Sometimes I have no idea what to quilt, until it is loaded and the top just seems to
"speak" to me. It is as if the machine and my hands have a mind of their own and they know better than I. I really can't explain what happens or how I decide, but I usually think about the quilt several days before it gets loaded. I also look at pictures of quilts on Webshots and get ideas from other quilters. If you would like to look at some of the tops I have quilted check out
http://community.webshots.com/user/barbara4811