You finish piecing the quilt. You baste it. And then it sits in front of you, waiting for the quilting. Suddenly you have to answer a question no pattern tells you: How should I stitch this?
When I made my first quilts, I only knew one answer: straight vertical lines. It wasn't until I finished a king-size hex quilt that I realized quilting itself was another design problem entirely. I reached out to another quilter who gave me some advice for what to try. At the time, I had no idea how to think about hand-quilting design. Since then I have tried a lot of things and I know that I’ve only touched the surface.
Before I decide on a quilting pattern, I usually think about five things:
How much time do I want to spend quilting this piece?
What kind of drawing will appear on the back?
How large should the stitches be?
Would it help to sketch a few ideas first?
Should the quilting reinforce the piecing, or create something entirely new?
Keep reading and I’ll share the tools for how I sketch out the design, seven stitch pattern methods, and finally, I’ll explain how I decide what to stitch on the quilt sitting in front of me.
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