Offering a New Quilter's Abbreviation ...

While I was visiting family in another city yesterday my DSIL began to chat about quilts (as usual) and she showed me her newest gift quilts she had made for the about-to-be-born grandchildren of friends. These were charming colorful quilts in soft flannel prints, just as cute as could be .... until I picked them up. I realized that these quilts seemed far too stiff and rigid for baby quilts and I looked carefully at the quilting which she had done in a pretty variegated thread.

DSIL had done free motion work on her HQ 16 and used a darling little butterfly motif with loop-de-loop lines between each butterfly but each butterfly was about the size of a quarter (that is a large US coin for the non-US BB members) and each butterfly was about four finger widths away from its neighboring butterfly with loop-de-loop lines connecting the butterflies. She had quilted this quilt to death. I held that quilt in my hands and I thought "QTD ..... Quilted To Death. I've gotta tell the folks on the BB that I've just invented a new term. QTD "

I took a deep breath and turned to DSIL and asked "Why did you put so much quilting on this quilt?" (I have known this woman for 45 years so I can be honest with her.) She said "Don't you like it?" I repeated my question. She said "I thought it was a nice pattern and I was having fun." Her husband said "I told you it was too busy." Evidently he sometimes wanders around her HQ 16 and kibtizes while she is quilting which is what happens when you have a retired husband. LOL Anyhow, I told her that I thought it was a bit too much for a baby quilt, that it had made the quilt a bit stiff. Actually, it was way too much .... she could have left half the quilting out and it would still have been too much IMHO. There was no space left for "poofiness".

Later in the afternoon we went down to her HQ 16 room and the machine frame was empty so I just idly touched my finger to one handle and glided it along and around and looped-de-looped with it. DSIL beamed at me and said "Doesn't it just glide along so easily?" she said. I agreed and I said that I could see how she got carried away with making so many little butterflies. I joked that it was easy to speed with the machine, like driving a Ferrari to the grocery store ... but I don't think she got my point. I think she will continue to quilt her quilts to death.

But now when I see photos of prize-winning quilts at quilt shows I know I will scrutinize them to see if they have been QTD. That seems to be the trend in the early days of the 21st century. It's easy to do now with long arm and mid-arm machines and stitch regulators taking the drudgery and pain out of so much stitching ...

Judy (who has babbled too long on this topic)