Ellen 1

I say the quilting is what makes or breaks the quilt! Also, you do not have to do ruler work to get a beautiful quilting motif. I do not think a meander is for all quilts, nor do you have to custom quilt every quilt.

tallchick

I have to say I am really enjoying reading everyone’s thought on this, it’s really eye opening and I hope that other continue to share their thoughts.

Iceblossom

One reason I accumulated the number of completed/non-quilted tops that I have (around/over 12) is that I couldn't quilt them down to my satisfaction on my little old sewing machine. For the past couple of years I now have access to a long arm and I'm pretty happy with what I can do.

But I find that while I think just fine in terms of 2D and the block designs/quilt patterns, my eye/mind have not fully evolved to the 3D of adding a quilting design and while some of my tops I do know what I want to do, some of them I have no clue. It does not come easy to me even though I am thinking about it the entire time I'm piecing. I'll do a search on the quilt name and look at what other people do (mostly on pinterest) and get ideas of what I do and don't like.

I see at shows the work of people who get the concept and I am learning, but not quite there yet (if ever!). Another issue I have is I still think in the more traditional hand quilting types of designs (individual blocks) and not so much in continuous line concept. I find with my friends machine that a stop stitch and then baste to the next block works better for me than stopping/starting/cutting threads -- her machine will NOT travel the uncut threads from block to block without giving me issues.

While I can work with the smaller/tighter designs, I still prefer a puffier acrylic batt to the warm & natural type. I just prefer the weight/feel of it. There are times though when a tighter design with the warm & natural is the correct choice.

I have some vision issues and the long arm is not set up for doing pantographs (no back handlebars, no computer either). When I'm not doing free hand designs, I copy the designs onto parchment paper I buy at the dollar store (rolls are 1 foot x 25) so I can see them clearer. It copies well and holds up much better than tissue paper but is still quite easy to tear off. Of course, tearing off the paper is messy and takes a lot of time (also to copy the designs in the first place) but the final results are worth it to me.

Typically my quilts don't have a lot of "empty" space. One thing I've found is that while I can do quite intricate designs the work gets lost in the busy-ness of the fabric and or block design. Best for me is to keep that sort of thing into alternate blocks, for instance I have a top of small "Broken Dishes" (maybe 4" finished size??, they were made from leftover cutting scraps of another project) separated by plain blocks. I think I will be quilting small butterflies into the alternate blocks while leaving the pieced blocks alone, or maybe just one (or both) diagonal line through the dish blocks.

Doggramma

I'm with you about the rulers. But I'm also not a feather person. Sometimes when I'm piecing a quilt, the quilting design(s) pop into my head. But I often get ready to do the quilting and "wing it" or revert to my normal spirals or woodgrain. I do agree, though, that fantastic quilting can really elevate a ho-hum quilt. The quilting design becomes more important to me if I've used solids or there's a large amount of negative space.

joe'smom

How much time would you say this would have taken using a DSM as compared to a long arm? Would you have attempted this same quilting on a DSM? I mentally separate DSM quilting from longarm quilting because I understand it is more physically difficult to do a comparable amount of quilting by shoving a quilt around under a needle and through a harp than it is to move a needle over a stationery quilt. If this were not the case, why would so many people be switching from DSMs to long arms?

Having said that, my comments are not meant in any way to slight the skill required to do long arm quilting; it is certainly an awe-inspiring art form! The mind boggles when looking at intricate long arm quilting.

It was the observation that the goalposts had been moved that prompted my post. I think this was an apt observation. I don't like the idea that all quilts are now being measured against what is possible/practical only with a long arm, and that quilters without long arms might be trying to 'keep up' with what is happening in the long arm quilting world. I want a traditional, pre-long arm quilting aesthetic to survive, and (to strain the football analogy a bit), I want the old distance field goals to still count in the score.

Kwiltr

This is an excellent discussion topic! As usual, everyone has their own opinion and they are diverse, but not “wrong”. Ten years ago I had a different opinion than I do now because that’s the direction my quilting journey has taken
me. I started out as a hand Quilter 40 years ago, and now I’m enjoying dense, somewhat intricate machine quilting and like what it can do for otherwise uninspiring quilts. Thank you FelineFanatic for such a well thought out post with examples! I follow much the same process. I enjoy the challenge of figuring out the ‘perfect’ quilting for my quilt. ‘Perfect’ meaning what I like the look of and what I can execute with my current skill set, or am up for trying for the first time. I always try to do something new to me on every quilt to keep myself growing in my quilting and challenged. It gives me great pleasure and satisfaction and keeps me ‘charged up’ .

Having said all this, I feel at it’s most basic, quilting the quilt sandwich is a utilitarian part of the process, there to perform the function of holding the sandwich together. Beyond that, it becomes an art form. We all have different tastes and talents in Art, so it follows that there will be different drivers in our own quilting style and ultimately our quilting journey.

For the non owners of a Longarm.. While Longarm machines can make certain elements of the quilting easier, there are more ways than one to skin a cat! In other words, don’t let your tools totally limit your imagination, because there is amazing quilting happening out there that was not done on a Longarm.

Enjoy the journey where it takes you!

Watson

The quilting design is very important because it highlights the parts of the quilt that you want the viewer to notice first.
How do I choose it? Well, quite often I don't, or if I do it takes me forever and a lot of ripping out because i did something and then didn't like it. I have a very tough time figuring out a design and then making it work, which is why I have a number of tops sandwiched and partly quilted. Especially on a "special" quilt that I have, I'm sort of paralyzed because I'm afraid to make a mistake and wreck it.
I recently purchased a sit down machine and am getting used to it and find you can really cover a lot of real estate with one of those! So, I will be taking on one of my big quilts again on it.
I was terrible on a long arm, but do OK FMQ-ing and ruler work-wise on the sit down.
I think a meander can look quite nice on a lot of quilts and is very good for quilts that are going to be used a lot.
Watson

feline fanatic

There are people who are proficient, absolutely amazing at DSM quilting or quilting on a sit down machine with extended throat. I encourage you to look up the work of Diane Gaudynski DSM quilter extraordinaire. And also Janet Stone who has won many major awards (Houston BOS for example as well as numerous BOS for AQS) who also does all her quilting on DSM.
And probably the most stunning example of DSM quilts, America Let it Shine by Sherry Reynolds.

They have mastered quilting on a DSM and I suspect if they duplicated my quilting in Agave Garden they would improve on it and quilt it in the same amount of hours, possibly less.

The reason many people go to LA isn't time savings, it is their brains just aren't wired to "push the paper" but to "push the pencil". I am one of those people. My struggles with DSM quilting wasn't so much wrestling the bulk under the throat it was movement itself. I just could not make my brain work that way so everything I did on DSM was herky jerky and didn't look pretty and I was tense and simply didn't enjoy the process at all. It wasn't the bulk because I had the same issues with small items like table runners as I did with a 60 x 60 quilt. Plus I hated the basting part with a white hot passion. Time savings (other than not having to baste any more) I don't think is the main motivator of so many people switching to LA it is enjoyment of the process.

The first time I tried a LA at a show it was like Nirvana for me. I and the quilt and the machine were one and had archived total enlightenment! This is what I was meant to do!

You are correct all 3 are different art forms and I really think the major shows are starting to recognize that. AQS appears to have separate categories now for hand, sit down machine (although they don't differentiate between large throat or small) and stand up machine and some shows even separate it further into stand up hand guided and stand up computer driven. Which is completely appropriate IMHO as they also use totally different skill sets.

kat13

I had the same problem, what I did was go to the hardware store and bought a large sheet of plexiglass and dry erase markers..
I then lay it over my quilt and play with designs! I have a piece of paper and pencil
To draft what I decide!
I also have traced designs onto tracing paper
And pinned them to my quilt. I have quilted onto the paper but I don’t recommend that..
Picking the little bits of aper out from your stitching isn’t fun!

Prism99

Totally agree with this.

Also want to add that personal preferences for machine quilting designs can change, just as personal preferences for fabrics and patterns can change. Years ago I wanted to make very traditional quilts, utilizing small pieces, in mostly dark colors with machine quilted motifs. Now I prefer making modern quilts that have larger individual pieces featuring fabrics in bright colors, with easy "organic" quilting lines.

I was fortunate to be able to buy a used longarm several years ago. Once I tried a longarm at a quilt show, I knew that I preferred frame quilting to FMQ on a sitdown machine. However, now that I have had a chance to try out various techniques on my longarm, I have realized that what I enjoy most is (1) easy quilting lines, and (2) the speed with which I can quilt. What I enjoy least is (1) ruler work and (2) FMQ of feathers and other motifs that require precision. I can still do a *lot* of different quilting designs using wavy lines, meander, loop-de-loop, McTavishing, etc. Some day I hope also to explore walking foot quilting on a sitdown machine.

Over time I have learned that quilting design is open to personal exploration, just as every other aspect of quilting is. That's part of the fun -- the challenge of working with what you have.