There was an interesting thread on this topic awhile back that you may want to search out. I was not very good at quilting without a hoop. I could get my top stitches to look good, but the back stitches were always crooked. A couple of posters in the other thread mentioned that stabilizing an edge makes it a lot easier to get even stitches. I think one method was to lay the quilt on a dining table and weight it down with books -- just so there is a little bit of tension on the portion of the quilt sandwich you are working on. I think someone else pinned an edge to a frame.