I am a hand quilter and belong to the school of "less is more" when it comes to the quilting. I see so many quilts that are, in my opinion, over quilted and so many times I can't see the quilt for all of the quilting.

There are times when I think that the heavy quilting works....especially when it's used to high light an applique, etc. but for the most part I'm with you on the "too many feathers".

Any LAQ that I hired, that used her own idea, instead of what was agreed upon, would either be taking it out, and redoing what was requested OR paying me for the fabric and time lost, and NEVER USED AGAIN. She/he was hired by you, to do a job you were paying for, how dare she/he even think to go off on something else. Inexcusable in my book. I love seeing all the wonderful quilting here, especially the ones posted that enhance the piecing. I do realize that some of us can be a little unrealistic (you can quilt that out right?) but if I agree to pay you to stitch straight lines all over a quilt, I will not be paying for anything else, however I am open to better suggestions during the negotiations process. I think of it this way- If I pay my mechanic to fix my Kia, I will not be paying for any Volkswagon parts "used" instead!

Depending on the quilt and the preferences of the person whose quilt it is, sometimes the quilting needs to be front and center. Other times, it should enhance the piecing.

Here's an example: I built a labyrinth quilt, I didn't use the 10 colors or whatever the pattern called for, I did it in three marble batiks without prints on top of the fabric. With only three colors, the huge expanses of fabric needed something to make them interesting. That quilt became a quilting canvas with lots of feathers.

A friend gave me her beautiful red French braid. The fabrics were so interesting that I had a hard time not just SITD the whole thing and giving it back to her. I wanted to see all of the fabrics and no quilting. She insisted she wanted my custom work though because she'd seen the labyrinth. There's not a single feather on that quilt. I actually put Asian looking fans on it, curlicues and swirls and because I did SITD all of the braids, I was able to keep it really sparse for the rest of the quilting. Of course, that also means I did the hardest thing. SITD on a LA is not the easy job it seems like it should be. It's easier on a domestic machine.

I am pleased that most people understand that I am not on a crusade against feathers, those who love them, do them, advise their use or even sleep on them...in fact my first quilt has a plethora of them as a dominant motif and it still pleases me. What I was attempting to do is adding a posting that gives a forum to others as to how they choose a design, seek others to interpret their indecision, how the professionals view both their artistic responsibility and financial obligation and allow others to simply add their two cents and not have some caustic reply drive them back to using private messages to express their opinions... so as not to bruise an ego.

McTavishing is four curled spikes together and the next four taking off in another direction. It's a filler pattern invented by Karen McTavish who specializes in whole cloth quilts.

Ha! I'd rather do feathers any day than SID on my longarm - you're so right about SID being the most tedious and difficult on a long arm!

True, its all a question of taste. Thank goodness we are all different.

Hers was one of the first fills I liked. She says she came up trying to mimic traditional hand quilting but on a machine. I think that's perhaps why a lot of her work resonates with more traditional quilters so much.

Exactly! I think the SID took me 3 full days on that braid. I think I narrowed it down to having to anticipate when you were going off course before it happened, and manage to not over correct all the while trying to manage any wave from the fabrics too. There's really no such thing as a long straight line to follow. :) That might be why sometimes LAers will "pull a face" and charge heavily if you want a lot of SID.

I really like feathers and am drawn to them when I look at quilts. I haven't done much quilting myself yet because we had custody of my granddaughter for the past 15 months and I didn't get much of any hobbies done. She's back with her parents now. Maybe 2015 will be better in this wayj.

Vertical and horizontal straight lines on l/a are easy...can do freehand, but diagonal..need the ruler.......