How many stitches do you see in the section of the quilt pictured? I did this as a test to see what quilting something different in every section of the quilt looked like. I have to say it is quilted a little over the top and I would not do this everyday. To be honest, most quilts need an overall meander for texture because they are used and don’t need to be heavy or stiff with all the threads.
I count 5 stitches here. Paisley in the borders. Pebbles in the background with wavy lines in the block. Ribbon candy is in the block, too! The top of the triangle has a little 3 fluff feather thing on top.
Looking at the quilt overall, it looks great! I do like the texture and movement this mini quilt has. However, I would not want to sleep under this. It would be hot and a bit heavy.
So how do you decide what to quilt? First and foremost what is the purpose or function of this quilt. Is it a gift to be used? Is it a sample of stitches? Is it for a show or a wall hanging at home? When you know from the beginning what the purpose of the quilt is then it makes it easier to decide how dense to quilt it.
Next, do you want the quilting to really show up? Is the piecing the star? Is the quilting going to augment the piecing? That’s what I tried to do in this sample. The blocks needed to sing or stand out. I made the background quilting more dense. It was creating a dimension and drawing the sections around the blocks into a textured background. The border was a solid and the paisley was a chance to create a pattern and texture with thread. All planned because I wanted it to be a WOW quilt. This will be a mini that displayed in my wall of mini’s. Sometimes, I have to be in this thinking and planning stages for days or weeks before actually loading the quilt on the frame. I am always thinking about what I want to do on the next quilt.
If you are just starting out, I suggest learning a shape to quilt like a swirl and do a overall meander until you master it then move on to another shape and learn to link the shapes together. Like a loop and swirl then add a leaf! There is a lot to learn about traveling across a quilt to get it quilted. Then you can figure out continuous lines and do some craziness like I did on this quilt.
Any questions? Leave a comment below,
Quilt on,
Vicki Holloway
mycreativecorner3.com 
I really like the patterns you sampled and how they work together. On a few of my quilts I used many, many patterns and I really liked the results. Yes, they were “quilted to death” but then again, I get bored easily! Lol
What I learned from those quilts was to use some simple patterns along with the complex ones so they don’t all blur together. If I could add a picture in the comments I would (I’m a newbie blogger).
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