Originally Posted by
lindaschipper
Remember that with a domestic machine on a quilting frame you will only have as much as maybe 5 inches of quilting space because of the take up bar. Your quiting design has to be small enough to fit into that space. I have the Janome 1600P on a small Grace SRll frame....straight stitch only, and am just learning about polyester thread vs cotton. Remember to use a quilting foot and set the foot tension at 0. Play around on scrap muslin for a while to check stitch length, etc. Lightly oil your machine each day before use.
Thank you for the advice! I mostly want a frame because it makes the quilt sandwich part much easier on me- I'm in my mid-30s, but I'm currently 8 months pregnant and I have fibromyalgia, so crawling around on the floor like I usually do to make the sandwich is difficult at this point. I can quilt on my domestic on a table, but hauling the quilt through the machine is difficult as well.
There are a couple basics that may help.
Thank you!!! This is extremely helpful! Covers everything I need to get started.
I know the machines I'm looking at are on the small side, but I don't have 4k to invest in a machine at the moment, and if you can refer to my paragraph above, table quilting is difficult for me at the moment. I'm not planning to do anything very complex with the final quilting at this point, I just need enough to keep the sandwich together.