feline fanatic

Heavy quilting is not a new trend. View pictures of antique quilts that have survived, many of them are very heavily quilted by hand. Echo stitching with lines 1/8" apart, 1/2" cross hatching, 1/4" pumpkin seeds and stippling, true stippling, all done by hand. In many cases it is only the heavily quilted quilts that have survived as the quilting helped reinforce the quilt. Pepper Corey has one pictured in her book "Mastering Quilt marking" that many of the fabrics had disintegrated, the only thing holding it together was the closely spaced quilting. "The Essential Quilter" by Barbara Chainey is another book full of pictures of very heavily quilted antique quilts (mostly whole cloth). So it is definitely not a current trend. The big national shows will consistently ribbon quilts and quilting that stand out from the pack and are well done. Dense background quilting is what gets motifs to pop and draws the spectator's eye in to very specific areas.

AngeliaNR

Doing something "to death" is simply an idiom, not necessarily a criticism.

charlottequilts

Isn't this, also, especially popular because many modern-style quilts have more empty space in them for showing off fancy quilting? Seems like I've seen a lot of those.

Hugs,
Charlotte

PaperPrincess

I like heavily quilted quilts because I quilt them myself and it's fun to do! For me, most of the enjoyment is the quilting process, not necessarily the actual resultant quilt, which is probably why I only have 1 of mine...

Stitch124

No assumptions were made here ... I said these quilts are very pretty, but I have heard more than one shop owner say that they are very stiff...generally speaking...maybe your's...not so much. Every time the needle pierces the fabric, it can weaken the fabric and although many of these quilts are beautiful works of art, I like to see quilts win that can actually be used on beds. Stitching that is so close together may be able to hold the quilt together but I still am of the opinion that it can break down faster over time.

Mimiqwerty

RST, I loved the pun: "sometimes a very heavily pieced quilt calls out for minimal quilting, but that can't be a blanket statement."

If I had the ability, I'd cover my quilts with lovely, delicious quilting. But, alas, my feathers end up looking like limp noodles. I'm pretty good at large wavy lines with loops, though, so that's what my quilts get.

MadQuilter

The nice thing about heavy background quilting is that the actual quilted pattern really pops. It is personal preference and while I don't do it myself, I can appreciate the work.

Terri D.

Quilt collector, judge and certified appraiser Gerald Roy wrote exactly about the subject of over-quilting in the January/February 2009 issue of Love of Quilting magazine. On page 14, he says, "At the show I was judging, I saw many quilts that visually were overly designed, had distorted surfaces, and displayed quilting patterns that were too busy and complex."

Earlier in the article he states, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

Good common sense advice.

mpspeedy2

I find this discussion very interesting. As a hand quilter I don't have any problems like "back-tracking". I know this is a world where everyone wants things done faster and faster. The most recent commercial quilt shows I have attended are dominated by long arm machines. I am sorry but using one of them makes me think of working in a sewing factory. I make upwards of 21 Linus quilts each month. At least half of them are usually machine assembled and machine quilted simply. The only reason I machine quilt them is because the child who ends up with one of them probably has parents that are not at all familiar with quilts. I know from experience with my own grandchildren that the quilts a child receives are usually dragged to death and washed as often as weekly. As good as my hand quilting is it would not survive with that much abuse long enough to become an heirloom. The other quilts needed to finish my 21 are usually pieces of fleece finished with a crocheted edge. The Linus Project requests that the same child only be given one quilt. I know from thank you notes that I have received that children, often those with multiple hospitalizations, are given one each time they enter the hospital. I have received notes that state that the child liked mine better than the last one he or she received, proof that they had already received one in the past. In my 40+ years of hand quilting I have never had a problem with a "grown up" quilt falling apart or loosing stitches. My cat sometimes does damage when he gets a claw caught in a stitch. I have probably a dozen hand quilted quilts of various sizes from queen to throw that are scattered about my house. All are hand quilted and still going strong. Hand quilting allows me to carry on a conversation or enjoy a TV program while getting some quilting done. If it is a small project it is totally portable. Don't knock it till you give it a try. I hand quilt on a floor frame with a small group of ladies at our local Senior Center on Monday mornings. We only quilt for about 1 1/2 hours but we get a queen size quilt done every year in more than enough time to be raffled off to benefit the center each year. At this point we have one already finished to be raffled off next year and are only a month or two away from finishing another.

DebraK

lol, "school of beau-coup quilting". I like that ;-)