can I embroider on a finished quilt?
 

I have a Brother ULT2003D embroidery/sewing machine. It has a separate attachment for embroidering with a hoop. Can I hoop a section of the quilt and use this to embroider a design on a finished quilt? These designs are preprogrammed on a card that goes into a slot in the machine. The machine will then stitch whatever design I choose. Will the quilt be too heavy and break the machine? The design stitches on its own, I do not guide it. Has anyone ever done this? Have I made myself clear? Thanks.

yes, i have done it on crib size quilts. I used a thinner batting so it should work if the batting is not too thick. However, I used the single line quilting designs to quilt in the motifs. It may depend on the density of your embroidery deigns. Check the manual and if possible talk with your dealer.

One of my friends actually uses an embroidery machine to quilt her quilts! She uses the line designs and it works really nice.

Yes it's so fun - I do this all the time on my Brother 4500D. If it's a large quilt, just "puddle" it loosely around the hoop so that it doesn't pull from the hoop and distort the design. Smaller quilts are easier of course.

Yes it can be done, if you can't hoop it, then hoop a wash away and then pin the quilt to that in the margins. If you can adjust your speed, dial it way down. You will need to sit right by it to make sure that it's not getting hung up some where or a corner is flopping onto the design. DO NOT WALK AWAY!!!
I know that many people quilt their quilts this way, but I find it too cumbersome dealing with all that bulk. I prefer to quilt/embroider individual squares (top batting & backing), then join.

As cautioned above, slow down and make sure it isn't too dense. I have your exact machine, and I've actually done items ITH with batting between fabrics--with no probs and no slowing my speed. But I'd hoop stabilizer & glue or pin to that, rather than trying to hoop the quilt. Stand by to support the weight as the arm moves. Have you never embroidered with your ULT??

And BTW, you can transfer designs from your computer that you've downloaded from the internet--to a floppy disk and use that in your machine. WOO HOO what fun you're gonna have!!

I like to embroider on each block (sandwiched), then put the blocks together as in QAYG. It is much easier doing each block rather than the whole quilt. I only do the continious line stitching motif in the middle of each block. I always use the low-loft batting (poly) as it works much better..

However, on the "dog" quilt I just finished, I drew the outline of the dog onto waxed paper, pinned it to the plain blocks and did the FMQ and it worked out well. I worked with the whole quilt but next time I will do QAYG method.