^^^Patrice has got a lot of great tips! :D

Patience, those were really good tips. You've inspired me to try again. Thank you. sherry mcd oklahoma

I FMQ all the time I clamp my quilt backing,then batting and top. Pin about every 3 - 4", drop the feed dogs, loosen the tension, set stitches to zero, take the pressure off the presser foot by turning the knob above the needle,put a new needle in, clean & oil machine, test on a scrap quilt sandwich. I roll quilt, start in the middle, I go from center to bottom, re roll, turn quilt go to the center quilt, from center to bottom, re roll it and turn quilt, go middle to bottom, on the width, re roll and turn quilt and go from center to bottom. I always quilt next to quilting and just keep going until it's done, removing pins as I come to them. I wear garden gloves with little rubber nubs and try to keep the speed of the machine fairly fast and try to move quilt at a comfortable speed. Try not to go too fast as you go around, a little faster on straight places. Relax and it will go easier. If this is your first, practice, practice, practice, before you start on your actual quilt. Always stop every so often to get quilt to move freely. I have a glass top table and that makes it much easier. I have made lots of twin to queen size and this works for me. Straight stitching is sometimes the easier method, I don't do it often and don't care so much for it. I hope this works for you.

Thanks everyone. I am going to try it. I think I'll move my machine to a table where I'll have more room and support for the quilt. Got to get the top finished first. I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll post a picture when I'm finished. Be prepared with sunglasses. My granddaughter loves orange!

I have a Juki with a nine inch throat and have quilted all my quilts on it. Most were full size or larger and they all went just fine. Go for it.

I did these 3 quilts on a small machine several years ago. They have been given away, so I can't take closeup photos of the quilting, but you can see some of it. Not award winning quilting, for sure, but satisfactory and relatively painless.

Hi!!! I was just listing some of the ways you can quilt it on a reg sewing machine. I always prefered Free Motion on my reg machines as I do now on the Longarm Free Form.

Make a sandwich and practice on it. The more you do it the easier it becomes. I've done MQ with just a walking foot, there are a lot of continuous designs that if you go slow you can accomplish this. FMQ does have a larger learning curve and patience requirement.

I don't know if there's one quilt I've done that hasn't tried my patience at some point or another. I've learned that if I'm getting frustrated, put it away and come back to it. Sometimes that break clears the mud and I get back to enjoying. If I don't enjoy its WORK and that's nooo fun!!
:-D :-D

OMG, Gorgeous

One more tip:
Use whatever you can to lessen the weight of the quilt.
A table or ironing board will help. One behind the sewing machine and one to the left will really help. If it pulls it will affect your tension and cause big problems.