I quilted a lap quilt with my Bernina embroidery unit. I have a 440, and my largest hoop is approx. 6" wide by 10" high. The quilt top was sandwiched and spray basted. I hooped the quilt directly, with no stabilizer. I embroidered a 6" x 6" design in the middle of each 12" block. Then I outline quilted 1/4" inside and outside of each block. I used decorative stitches through the border - I friend has a Bernina that does 9mm wide stitches. I was not thrilled with the finished look however (6" in the middle looked too small) and in the future would not use this method for a larger than 9" block. If I had a Bernina 830 with a Jumbo hoop I could do a larger design to fit the 12" block better. I think I could use a Hoop-it-all but it would mean moving the quilt around to do different parts of the block. Since you hoop the layered quilt, you could just do whatever design you wanted anywhere. I used open "quilting" embroidery designs. You can get these in collections that are multi-formated for different brands of machines.
When I took a class in quilting with an embroidery machine, I did a table runner. I had a spray of leaves that I enlarged in my software to fill half of a 12" block, then I hooped the other half and mirror imaged the design. Then I just SITD around the block. I liked that one a lot better. I gave that one to my Mother or I'd post a picture of it.
Last edited by Skyangel; 01-03-2013 at 10:08 AM.