Prism99

Quilting from the middle out originated with hand quilting in a hoop. The reason for this was to ensure that any fullness got moved out to the edges of the quilt rather than pushed to the center, for obvious reasons. Even in those days, however, frame quilters did not quilt from the center out, but rather from the edge in.

I personally would never machine quilt straight stitching from the center out. It is not necessary unless (1) you have a machine that cannot be adjusted to feed the layers evenly, and/or (2) you do not prepare the quilt sandwich in such a way as to make it very stable.

Regarding the machine, honestly most machines can be adjusted to feed a quilt sandwich evenly. My Bernina will do it even without a walking foot. Many machines, however, will require a walking foot and some machines will also require some adjustment to the presser foot pressure. My Bernina does not allow for presser foot pressure adjustment, but then it is good at adapting to different thicknesses.

I should add one caveat to my recommendations, and that is that everything I mention might be insufficient if you are using an extremely high loft batting and/or you are quilting a very large quilt, such as queen or king size. Most people avoid extremely high loft batting anyway, so this is largely a non-issue. For a very large quilt, what I mention should still work if you are careful, and in that case I would also recommend using one of the methods for splitting up a large quilt on a domestic sewing machine (such as splitting up the batting, but there are other methods too).

The whole point is to prevent fabric from creeping ahead of the presser foot, and from letting any of the 3 layers shift while you are sewing. Stabilizing your top and backing before sandwiching will help a lot with this, and using a stable basting method will also help a lot.

For the backing, I recommend heavily starching before you start layering. I like a 1:1 solution of Sta-Flo and water, which is a much heavier starch solution than spray starch. What this heavy starch does is stabilize the backing so it will not stretch or distort while you are quilting.

For the top, I recommend doing several layers of spray starch. Ironing dry between starchings can be a lot of work. It's fine to just mist the entire top (laying it out flat on an oversized flat sheet is good) and allow the spray starch to dry between mistings. A fan will help speed the drying. Again, the starch stabilizes the fabric in the top so it is much less likely to stretch or distort while you sew.

Basting method can make a huge difference. Spray basting binds all 3 layers together continuously, unlike pin basting. I have not used it myself, but glue basting also offers the opportunity to bind all layers together continuously. Just be sure with glue not to have large areas without glue and other areas with big globs of glue. Spray basting and glue basting stabilize the quilt sandwich so that layers are not able to shift while you sew, and they also help to keep the top and backing fabric from stretching under the presser foot.

The larger the quilt, the more important it is to use all of these methods for stabilizing the quilt sandwich. The machine is also extremely important. You can kind of tell by looking if a machine is not feeding layers evenly. If you have a suspicion that the presser foot is pushing the fabric ahead, chances are it is.

A good test would be to prepare a quilt sandwich using fabric that has been washed (to remove factory sizing) but not starched, and a high loft batting. I would make this at least a yard square (larger is even better) and do cross-hatching on it. Chances are good you will get puckers where the lines cross. Try again with the stabilization methods I mention, and chances are good you will not get puckers. If you do, your machine needs adjustment (or you need a different machine).

Edit: Sorry this got so long.