Originally Posted by
GarageDragon
Please forgive the ignorance of a newbie, but I don't understand? I understood the 'stitching up to' was maximum distance from a stitch, and so a 6" square would be fine in this instance. If it's not that, then wouldn't it also not be compatible with straight line or wavy line quilting (or tying)? Or am I totally misunderstanding?
Well, technically a 6" square does not meet the specs because you have almost 8.5" of space between quilting lines if you measure corner-to-corner. When the batting specifies a max quilting distance of 6", it means that there should not be more than 6" of batting in any direction that is unquilted.
You are correct that lines (whether straight or wavy) that do not cross each other do not meet the batting specifications. Often modern quilts will have straight lines just 1/2" or 1" apart, but they never cross. It's true that in this case the batting is not totally stabilized. The issue here is that there are no quilting stitches stabilizing the long lengths of batting. When aesthetics take precedence like this, it's good to be aware that the quilt should get some special handling when being washed and dried because, over time, it's possible for the batting to come apart, distort, or ball up between quilting lines.
Quilters often take more liberties with wall hangings, which will not be washed as often as quilts and will also not be subject to the stresses of being sat upon, dragged around the house by a toddler, etc.