A spin-off from Treasureit's post.

I read somewhere that you should SID or at least do some grid quilting before starting fancy quilting. Does every part of the quilt need to be quilted? If I have a patchwork quilt and secure it with SID then only quilt the plain squares / areas, is that enough to secure it? Would it look funny?

I need to start slow otherwise, I'll grid quilt forever. And that is getting boring.

You can quilt it anyway you want to. My MIL always did a grid on her quilts that were just squares. She never did SID.

Check your batting and see what the requirements are for quilting. I used an old package of batting in a quilt recently and it said to quilt every 2". Egad.

I don't quilt that close and have never had any problems.

IMHO it all comes down to the batting you're using (what the manufacturer recommends) and what you would like to do. W&N you can quilt 8-10" apart.

Good to know it's all about the batting! W&N is what I use as I find it much easier to machine quilt. Thanks!

I agreed with SewCrafty and KarenPatrick. It is very important to know what the manufactures of the different battings recommend as to how far apart the quilting stitches should be. Especially if you want the batting not to shift as the years go by. Years ago I made a longstar quilt (my first quilt) and did not quilt it as close as it should have been. Now the batting has loose areas, is wadded up in some areas, and has no batting at all in other areas.

"Fancy" quilting does not have to be SID or grid stitched first, but if you plan to do very close quilting in some areas it sure does help to stablize the quilt sandwich by stitching somewhat evenly over the entire quilt whether it is SID in sashing seams or outline stitching blocks. This will help keep the quilt square and avoid wavy borders. Of course, my experience has come from quilting on a longarm machine. Handquilters and domestic machine quilters may do it differently