Originally Posted by LadybugPam
Newbie ... your quilting idea is so awesome, it should be patented. In three years someone is going to bring this to Market, mark my words.
I have done FMQ for some time and have not had a problem quilting as big as 72" square. But I am not comfortable doing a pattern - I do lots of meandering (puzzle pieces). But I have quilted two double/queen size quilts in two pieces. The toughest part is when the two pieces are sewn together and I have to do the last row of quilting in the center. It can be done. It can be beautiful.
Something to consider doing when making a larger quilt than a crib size, is to make it in sections. This must be planned out before you sew the top together, because you might decide to have sections that aren't just the whole thing divided into four equal sized/shaped parts. You also must not quilt within 1" of the cut edges. When done quilting all the sections, you sew just the top edges together, trim batting so will butt up together, flip it over and hand sew the backing seam together. See the book " Machine Quilting in Sections" by Marti Michell. I'm in the middle of one of these right now and each of my four sections are very different shapes, but managable for FMQ w/ my home machine. I still like the idea of turning the machine 90 degrees, tho, and am going to try that on this one.