Originally Posted by AlienQuilter
Thanks raedar for bringing this up. Looks like a good deal. When we remodel/update our home, I will talk DH into a long arm machine for me.
Question then on throat space. Any chance when you get to the middle of the quilt, that you can turn it around and start quilting towards the other end?
Are there any machines that let you do this? Or do you have to choose a quilting design that's horizontal and not very wide. I've seen some beautiful feather quilting on this forum and was wondering how they did it without turning the quilt.
yes. when you get to the center of a large quilt on a small-throated machine, you can unpin the quilt, turn it around, repin it, and work away from you instead of toward you. you'll be rolling it up on the front bar (belly bar) away from the needle. and you have to be very careful to keep smoothing the three layers toward the back roller to avoid puckering, but it can be done. i've done it on a small frame with a smaller machine, which i subsequently sold for that reason. i can tell you that it's a giant pain in the butt, but i did manage to make 2 oversized queens that way. in the end, i would rather make a big quilt in sections before i would do that again.
as far as re-sizing the frame, if you have the space to extend it to full size, you never have to resize it. you just leave it at full size. you can do two baby quilts, side by side, at the same time that way.
edit: i should have pointed out that when you repin, you repin
the bottom layer and float the batting and top layer. at least i did. that allows you to keep smoothing.