Prism99

After seeing the photo, I'm sure part of the problem is the combination of dense quilting with large areas of no quilting.

However, I think this would not have been nearly as much of a problem if you had outline-quilted the snowflakes, snowman, hat, etc. before doing the background quilting. You probably would have wanted to quilt additional lines first as well, such as all around the hat brim.

What type of batting and thread did you use? I am thinking using a thin batting and fine thread would also help to minimize the problem somewhat.

Edit: If you look at the snowflake, you can see how you "pushed" excess fabric into the snowflake's center. If you had outline quilted around the snowflake before doing the background quilting, the fabric would not have been able to bunch up in the center like that. When quilting in-between the snowflake's spokes, you would want to move in towards the center first and then quilt your way out -- to push any excess fabric away from the snowflake's center instead of towards it. To do this, you might need to quilt on top of the previous outline quilting to get to the center.