We always tied our quilts. When the outside needed washing (not every year), the ties were cut off, the outside was washed and then it was all put back together (after any needed repairs. Later we found it was better to have the wool batt encased in cheese cloth or other light weight fabric. That way the batt had less chance of shifting and producing spots with almost no batt left.
We always tied with wool yarn. Those ties got tighter and tighter the longer they were on the quilt.

I would tie at 3" no matter what batting label said. No matter what kind of batting you use. I never trusted yarn and always used doubled crochet thread. I only tie comforters, never quilts.

Which brings us back to what is a comforter and what is a quilt if they are both pieced?

Well...yeah...technically, a tied "quilt" would be a comforter. But these days, I think that most people see anthing that's pieced as a quilt and a comforter is one of those big, fluffy things inside a duvet. It's all just semantics.

~C

I have made one tied quilt, a disappearing 9 patch, and tied it with yarn and after several washings it's still in great shape with no bunching or shifting. It's tied about 4" apart.

Uses less fabric, and creates less bulk for hand quilting. Grandma didn't have a machine to quilt them.

If I am going to tie a quilt, I use a smaller stitch and a 1/2" seam to keep them from coming apart with heavy use (as in being dragged around). I also tie them closer together. Depending on the style of the quilts, I try to make sure I tie at every place the pieces come together to add strength to the joins.

The only tied quilt that I made was for my daughter. It was a "going off to college" gift for her, and I didn't have time to quilt it (didn't have a longarm back then), so she and I tied it with DMC cross-stitch thread (all 6 strands). We didn't really measure the distance between the ties, just eyeballed it - if it looked like there was too much space, we tied. That quilt went to college and back(during the summer), several times, then on to her "grown up life". She's married now, with two small children, and it's been (oh my goodness!) 15 years since we made it. It's still going strong, still at the foot of their bed, no problems with it. I guess she's just taken really good care of it.

I think the new tumbler washing machines versus the agitator machines help reduce bunching and fraying.

Tied quilts are so comfy. When I first started I tied quite a few with embroidery floss. They held up well for my 3 little boys, my sister, my brother, and one for us.
This brings back nice memories. I'm sure I'll do a tied quilt again sometime.