I am so glad this subject came up, because I never gave it any thought. For some reason, I thought the more quilting, the sturdier the quilt.

My time LA quilting a batik quilt, I quilted it too densely. I didn't realize that it would feel so flat and heavy and not comfy like I wanted. My next LA quilt I also had embroidery in the blocks and only SID around the blocks and did large loop-de-loops in the stashing. Liked it much better. Lesson learned for the next LA quilt.

I know what you mean. I recently attended a large quilt show and the close quilting made the quilts seem very stiff and hard, not like I want my quilts to be. I don't quilt that close on mine.

I hand quilt and I like
mine puffy & soft. J J

I think my quilts must be inbetween with the quilting. I don't like heavy quilting bc I want my piecing to shine. But I also don't want my quilts to fall apart after a few washings. I've seen quilts with so much fancy quilting that you lose the nicely pieced pattern. But in the end it's like the old saying "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" I don't intend my quilts to be judged. My DD went with me to the Expo and after looking at all the quilts she wanted to know why I don't enter my quilts. I took that as a wonderful compliment from her.

I dont quilt that heavily because I dont have the patience or time. But I love the way it looks.

I love anything that is made with colorful cottons,so I would leave it as soft and comfy as I can.I like the tying with floss or yarn look.

I'm learning to do free motion quilting, following Leah Day's blog and web-site, so helpful. She mentions that some of the show quilts can almost stand up on their own because of the heavy quilting! One that I finished recently was for practice and decoration so did lots of quilting. The next one I made for my son and wanted it to be softer and cuddly. Had a hard time not quilting every inch of it because it's fun to do.LOL

It is really interesting how everyone does things differently. I don't like dense quilting either. Sometimes, when I have had someone else quilt for me, it just overwhelms the piecing and fabric design and I don't like that. But, the person doing the quilting is an artist too and likes the work she has done to look wonderful. It is just a preference. I do qid a lot, but am learning to FM. But, I don't quilt densely (sp??)
Verna in So CA

I understand what you mean. I like the beauty of my quilts to be in the piecing. I pick my fabric carefully and plan my design, cut and stitch. I usually have a meandering stitch or SID to make them "a quilt".

However, I respect and appreciate the beauty of the patterns that some long arm or hand quilters achieve. It just isn't something I want to spend my time doing.