The quilts I have seen with utility quilting have been quilts on display in quilt shops, and were very nicely done. This was several years ago when utility quilting caught on, and more quilters were doing it. It seems to have since died off a bit, and is not seen as much, but I like the look, and plan to use it eventually. The ones I have seen were machine pieced with a normal stitch, and quilted by hand with the stitches about 1/4" apart. I don't remember what thread was used for the quilting.