Originally Posted by Coco
I have a Juki 9". As the quilt is being done it's rolled onto the take up roller, which is inside the throat of the machine, so the quilting area gets smaller. By the end of a queen quilt I have only a 5" wide area to quilt. That's not enough. I really don't think you'd be happy using your regular machine on a frame unless you were doing very small quilts.
I'm looking for an 18" machine. One I'm considering is the ABM Innova. You might want to check it out.
I bought the 26" Innova in December. I love it, and the price is less than some others. To me, the price difference between 18" and 26" was not that great, and I am using the full 26".
However, a longarm is a big investment in money and in space. If you can't make that investment yet, try quilting in sections. I used that method on quite a few large quilts and felt that it was a good alternative to wrestling with a large quilt in a small machine throat. The book Machine Quilting in Sections by Marti Michell explains this very thoroughly. (No, this is not quite the same as quilt-as-you-go.)
http://www.amazon.com/Michell-Machin...6169828&sr=8-1