I quilt my own on my machine. It does have a large throat, and that helps. It has a 9 1/2 inch throat....just measured, but it doesn't matter. I am too "cheap" to send one out to be quilted. I SID most of the time and am quite happy with that. Sometimes I do a diagonal cross stitch-type thing and sometimes I use a combination of both. I did learn to put my ironing board at a 90 degree angle to the left of my machine, and that helps support the weight of the quilt. It was impossible before that. Gravity always won.
Dina