Heavy quilting means less puff (i.e., a flatter quilt), because you're compressing the air out of the batting with your stitching. These flatter, less puffy quilts don't feel as squishy as a lightly quilted quilt. Maybe that is what people mean by 'stiff'.
Originally Posted by
Grandma Nancy
After reading Gildan's message about the amount of machine quilting making a quilt stiff, I wonder if machine quilting with minimal stitching on a domestic machine such as stitch in the ditch (10 stitches per inch or so) would give a similar soft feel. Your thoughts please.
A large-piece quilt with high-loft batting machine-stitched only in the ditch comes out quite puffy and airy.