Originally Posted by
jaciqltznok
I send mine out...and am in the process of finding a NEW quilter that is closer to OK. One that will NOT quilt my quilts to death and beyond, but will follow my more traditional quilting requests!
Um, traditional hand quilted quilts were quilted quite closely. Look at welsh, Amish or antique quilts. Any that have survived had dense backgound fill. Usually a grid of 1" cross hatching that filled in behind decorative designs like medallions, feathers, or other decorative stitchwork.
Anything that was quilted more sparsely didn't survive. But then again many utility quilts weren't expected to survive.
Batting that you can quilt more than 2" apart is a more recent invention, like only came about in the past 30 to 50 years or so. Until then all you could use was cotton or wool batting that was not needle punched nor had a scrim. It was usually hand carded so dense quilting, or as you call it "quilted to death" was necessary. So I really think you mean your more "Modern" quilting requests if you prefer sparce quilting.