I tie the smaller quilts (baby and coverlets) and I give my big quilts to a friend of mine who does long arm quilting. She does beautiful work and I would rather do it this way and give the money to someone I totally trust with my quilts and know that I will love whatever she does - and I do! I have been recommending her to other quilters around here. I would much rather help a cottage industry than a commercial outfit. It is more personal too. Edie

I have never sent one out, I have done queen and 1 King on my DM, but now I do quilt for others on my mid-arm. My frame is 10 feet and I can do up to a Queen; I have access to a different LA I can use to do the Kings.

In my area, we have a shop where you can rent a long arm, the owner will guide you through the process. She also has a computer program that will do it for you.

I also send mine out. Anything I can do for the economy.......:)

I've never sent one out, I don't have a LA, just a DSM, so I mostly make up to twin size and just SID, haven't tried FMQ. But I have in mind to make a large quilt for my son's wedding, and plan on sending it out.

I have never sent out a quilt to be quilted. I have quilted my own, whatever the size. I just do a large stipple or meadering, I like to say I made it all myself.

I send mine out...and am in the process of finding a NEW quilter that is closer to OK. One that will NOT quilt my quilts to death and beyond, but will follow my more traditional quilting requests!

Who says they tell them they didn't quilt it? I suspect there are some who are happy to let the fact someone else quilted their "homemade" quilt remain a secret. Just as I am sure there are many that are honest about having paid someone to do the quilting.

Um, traditional hand quilted quilts were quilted quite closely. Look at welsh, Amish or antique quilts. Any that have survived had dense backgound fill. Usually a grid of 1" cross hatching that filled in behind decorative designs like medallions, feathers, or other decorative stitchwork.
Anything that was quilted more sparsely didn't survive. But then again many utility quilts weren't expected to survive.

Batting that you can quilt more than 2" apart is a more recent invention, like only came about in the past 30 to 50 years or so. Until then all you could use was cotton or wool batting that was not needle punched nor had a scrim. It was usually hand carded so dense quilting, or as you call it "quilted to death" was necessary. So I really think you mean your more "Modern" quilting requests if you prefer sparce quilting.

I quilt all of mine on my domestic machine. I make mostly bed size quilts (twin - up to king). I would love to own a Long arm but it is not in the budget. I did have a Handi quilter frame for a while and used my Juki TL98E on it. But I decided that the space was too limiting for bed size quilts.