I'm reading this knowing I need this information also. I've only hand quilted my queen sized quilts for this exact reason. So I'm excited to see the different ways to do this. Has anyone ever tried the method Kwiltr talks about? If I understood it right you only put batting in the middle section, then quilt that before adding more batting to the other outside sections so that while you are quilting the middle you only have fabric on the outside. I've never heard of doing this before but it sounds like it would work. The only thing is you would have to use batting tape or sew batting in and pin/spray (or whatever) to baste and quilt like 3 times before you got it all done right? It sounds like much more work this way, but probably doable. Has anyone else ever actually tried this? I'm getting ready to do a bigger quilt and would love to do it on the machine. Maybe this is the best way?