Originally Posted by Basketman

I have been a fairly consistent reader of late and noticed that IMHO too many quilts, sent out to be longarm quilted, come back with a feather motif and then their careful piecing or well executed design elements get overpowered in a thousand swirls. I understand that many of us do not have the skills or mindset to do intricate/complex quilting and few can compete with computer generated near perfection, but are quilts becoming less personalized and too often being stitched with a puppy mill mentality and feathers are just in...for the moment? Do you leave it mostly to the "experts" and then hope for the best or do you google/bing, or whatever, the type of machine being used and then shop for a design that suits you, their machine and your quilt top and ask them to buy it and work it into your quilt?

Please no hate mail from you dedicated long arm quilters, I get feathers are both historic and some quilts scream for their use...but for those of you who think "outside the box"...what is your approach and when does a quilt stop being yours and become a canvas for excess?