I am a novice quilter (8 months). Exactly what is a long arm machine? My local quilt shop has a machine that does the quilting all by itself. Is that what it is?

It is a machine with a deeper throat, making it easier to quilt larger items :wink:
Some are computerized, some are not. The one at your LQS is probably computerized :D:D:D

Go on line and google long arm quilting machines. That way you can see what they look like.

yep, it must be computerized though. they are very expensive.

By the way, there are no dumb questions here. All are happy to answer questions. There are a lot of knowledgeable people here and they can answer about any question anyone has.

Not necessarily.

The "harp" area of a machine is the area of the bed to the right of the needle. If you measure this, most domestic machines have about 7 inches of space there (some a little less, some a little more). This is the area that can get very crowded when you machine quilt a large quilt; when quilting the center area, half of the quilt must fit under the arm (the top part of the machine that defines the area of the harp).

Midarm machines have about 13 inches of harp space. Longarm machines have around 18 inches of harp space. These machines are mounted on frames so that you are facing the narrow end of the machine when you quilt. In other words, you are facing the needle from the side of the machine, so you can grasp handles on each side as you move the needle where you want the stitches to go. Some of these setups are hooked up to a computer so that you can program them to sew the quilting design automatically, without human interference.

Domestic machines can also be computerized to sew quilting designs automatically. This is what you saw in the shop if the machine looked like a regular domestic sewing machine and was automatically sewing out a design within a hooped area. (Midarm and Longarm machines, because they are mounted on frames that keep the quilt stretched, do not have hoops.)

I agree, no dumb questions, glad you are here.