How closely should quilting be done on a quilt?

Quilters Ask Questions, and We Answer Them

A: To make a great design and enhance the beauty of the quilt

Given current manufacturing processes, this is more likely to be the determining factor when you decide how much quilting to put on your quilt.

My experience is that when you have a solid fabric or a relatively simple quilt design, having extensive quilting adds a lot to the quilt. Once I did massive quilting on a fabric that had a very “busy” design, and none of the quilting was to be seen. It would have been just as effective to stitch in the ditch every 4.”

If you have an interesting block design, or if you are doing appliqué, your quilting stitches can make something either stand out or fade into the background.

One of my all time favorite quilts (in this close-up picture and in the picture above) was made for my daughter, Stephanie’s, 5^th grade teacher and her new baby.

Stephanie liked the picture on this thank you card, so we decided to make a quilt using the design.

The fabrics are mostly hand dyed, and relatively solid. The pattern in most of the fabrics is created from the variation in the dying. We used quilting stitches to get some texture and an idea of the various feathers, fur, spots, etc. on the animals.

Looking back at the space quilt, I used quilting stitches to make the blocks stand out, and the more intricate quilting stitches to make the rest of the quilt fade into the background.

This leads into the second question: What kind of stitching can be done on a log cabin quilt?

Like so much in quilting – you can do pretty much anything! But, that’s not really too helpful.

The thing about log cabin quilts is that there are tons of patches – which means lots of seams, and usually fairly small expanses of fabric. Generally the logs in a log cabin are 1- 1½” wide, which doesn’t leave much space for fancy quilting designs without crossing a lot of seams.

While stitching across seams is not difficult, sometimes it interferes with the flow of the quilting design.

To keep it relatively simple, on log cabins, I usually stitch in the ditch. Sometimes I have added a second row of quilting 1/8” – ¼” away from the first row. Or, if your log cabins make a definite design, such as hearts, you could quilt around the pattern, leaving the actual pattern unquilted so it will stand out. Then quilt fairly heavily between each of the patterns, so they recess into the background.

Hope that helps!

Happy Quilting!

Penny Halgren

Penny is a quilter of more than 24 years who seeks to interest new quilters and provide them with the resources necessary to create beautiful quilts.

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©2006, Penny Halgren