lswan

Please, preference for amount of quilting is fine. When you say you don't like something, it leaves the quilter judged. Saying quilted to death is a put down. Over quilted is a put down. If your preference is for less, more open quilting, fine. That we are making, creating quilts is the important thing. Taste and preference are inevitable and help shape our work. If something is not your taste, that is ok. My personal passion is heavy quilting on my vintage Singers. I think it gives my quilts a sculptural quality that I love. I let the quilt fabric and design speak to me and quilt it accordingly. I am not obscuring the pattern or hiding the fabric, I am making sculpture that gives its owners a hug. I do not expect all to give it their thumbs up. I have been criticized at shows for distorting the fabric. That was my intention, it is fabric, not paint. Every one has different tastes in type and kind of fabric, that is good. There is no right fabric, except for what you are working on. Please celebrate the quilts as the time and passion put into them is incredible; it doesn't diminish what you do, but adds to the creative tide of quilts. May our tribe increase!

Sewnoma

Interesting...I didn't really think about it much, but our county fair separates quilt entries into several categories, including if the quilt was made by an individual or if a group/club made it; if it was quilted by hand or by machine; if it was pieced by hand or by machine; and in the quilted-by-machine categories they further split it between long arm and domestic machines. Then they do more splits by quilt size. Then they duplicate everything so there's a "novice" category and an "expert" category. (I probably have those category names wrong, but if you've ever won a blue ribbon anywhere they consider you an expert; everyone else is a "novice".) So in the end there are dozens of different categories.

I won a 4th place ribbon last year. I was in Novice/Individual/Machine pieced/machine quilted - domestic/large quilt category, and my quilt was very minimally quilted. First time entering...and I won a ribbon! Only 4th place but I was over the moon.

KimS

I love to see pictures of the quilts that are quilted heavily!!! The patterns are gorgeous and I truly admire the talent of those who are able to do it. I have to agree with Stitch124 that they do look stiff but are still beautiful. I do some machine quilting but the majority of mine are hand quilted. I find doing hand work so much more relaxing than sitting at the machine.

Karamarie

Many different thoughts on the quilting of a quilt. When I make a quilt, I want that quilt to be all "made by me" when I give it to a friend and/or relative. Saying that, I have taught myself to machine quilt on my domestic machine. It can be a challenge when working with a big quilt, but it is doable. I like a challenge once in a while and get better at machine quilting with every quilt. It is much easier (and maybe more fun) to take it to a long armer, see all her beautiful quilts pick out a pattern and then let her deal with putting the backing, batting and quilt to together on the frame. But there is nothing more rewarding in the quilting world for me than to complete a quilt from start to finish all by myself so that when the recipient looks at the quilt given to them and they say -did you do all this yourself - I can say yes I did. Not everyone is comfortable doing their own quilting and that is OK - we are all different and unique in our own little way so keep on quilting. There will always be plenty of quilts out there for our long armers to quilt and they do "beautiful" work.

Judi in Ohio

This quilt is not (imho) quilted to death in any way shape or form. This quilting puts the emphasis on the areas you wanted high lighted. And it does just that.
I am not a lover of art quilts for myself. I love the old fashioned, scrappy, gorgeous colored block quilts. I like looking at the art quilts, but that is not for me. My jaw drops at the talent some of the art people have. I don't have a shred of art quilt in me, but I admire what others do. I think the over the top quilting is a wonder to see, but do not want it on my quilts. I like my quilts to stand on there own. Just enough design quilting to be flattering to the quilt. I go to shows to see every quilt, but tend to drift towards the more main stream, useable quilts. I'm also from the school of, if two fabrics look good, 300 would look better.
There's room for everyone in this quilting hobby/compulsion we all seem to have.

Judi in Ohio

I actually did not get a negative vibe from the term "quilted to death" and I did not assume that said quilting ruined a quilt. I think this is a statement that many people would say because it is descriptive of what is going on in the quilt judging world right now. The more extreme the quilting, the higher the placement, it seems. Many of these quilts are not intended for beds, they are pieces of art, and as such have maximized the quilters quilting abilities. Why not? It's their quilt and intended for competition. My jaw drops when I see the lovely work in some of these quilts. Some amazing stuff, nothing I aspire to, but I'm also not interested in breaking out the oils and doing a painting. Same thing. Different medium.

juliea9967

As far as what is happening at the shows, so be it. If you are aware of it and want to win something, you know that you will have a better chance right now if you quilt it to death. That is the current trend and that is just the way it is. And trends are always changing, so don't let it get you down.
Julie

bigsister63

IMHO I do not like quilts that are heavily quilted. I have seen quilts that are so heavily quilted that all you see is the quilting and not the fabric or the pattern. I personally like less quilting and having the pattern and the fabric be the star. also I do my own quilting so I can not always make it soo dense. since there are no quilt police- do what ever you like!!!!

maggie_1936

I agree tied quilts are soft and cuddly but you never see them in shows. the over quilted ones are just for show not to be used.

Skittl1321

In what world is "to death" not negative? Why would anyone want to do something with the result of death? Death is generally a negative thing. "Worked to death" doesn't imply a positive, "quilted to death" tells me it was quilted to the point of ruin (death).

I don't think quilted to death is descriptive of show quilts right now. Perhaps "heavily quilted" or even "very heavily quilted" is; but to death is incredibly negative to me.

Personally, I don't care for many pieced quilts- I like more free flowing designs or representational designs, or quilting where the thread is the star, but I would never tell someone who put a lot of hard work into a postage stamp quilt and then just ran a light stipple over it that their quilt was pieced to death!

Many quilt shows will not accept tied quilts, though some will- which is why you may not see many.
I've only seen very few over quilted quilts in shows (especially juried ones, which have high standards.) Now I've seen some that are incredibly heavily quilted, with practically no non-quilting space. But I wouldn't say it was over-quilted, which means the quilter did too much; rather a lot was exactly what they meant to do, so it was quilted exactly as it intended, not over quilted.


If you want good odds at a ribbon at an AQS show, enter the hand-quilted bed sized quilt category. They do have hand quilting as a category (both wall hanging and bed sized.) The wall hanging category seems more popular