The quilt you're working on is pretty. So are the stained glass items in the background. Did you do them, too?

very neat they used to do it that way in the old days.

That's the way my Grandmother quilted. After the quilt is sandwiched and the top is attached to one of the boards and the bottom is attached to the opposite board, the sides are rolled up to a comfortable working distance between the rolls. This should be the center of your quilt showing. Then you quilt from the center out in all four directions. Each side is unrolled as necessary to quilt.
If you have chairs, only two boards are needed for attaching the top and bottom of quilt. The chairs are used to rest these two boards on. If suspended from the ceiling, then you need 4 boards, 2 to rest the other two on (by clamping with C clamps or any other means of immobilizing them.) These two side board had holes every couple inches and my grandmother used a peg to hold them in place.
I hope this helps.

Do you know anyone who has used these kinds before? I am making the Farmer's Wife Sampler all by hand and am curious about this as I have never hand pieced muchless hand quilted before but don't have the budget to put a ton of money into a quilting frame. This looks like it might be in the price range and DH is very handy so he would be able to make it for me.

I have one of the PVC frames but I never use it. It doesn't take up much room but it is too big for my small house. I just use a lap hoop.

My mother always used a frame like this. It hung from the ceiling in the living room or big room. There were large hooks (don't know what they were called) that screwed into the ceiling and strong string was run thru the steeple type hook and tied. Then the string was tied to each corner of the frame where the pieces crossed and were clamped tight. Then when lowered, the string was unwound, then wrapped back around the corner of the frame when thru for the day. I have it now as Mom passed away last year. Mom always put a sheet over the quilt when thru quilting for the day so dust would not get on the quilt. She would quilt all the way from one end to the other as far as she could reach and then unclamp the two corners, roll the quilt til she could reach another section.

Not sure if this is explained very clearly. It's hard to explain, but I can close my eyes and see how she did it. We tied a lot of quilts on this, too.

Also, we basted the top, batting and backing of many quilts together, that my sister-in-law's mother would then quilt on her lap. The basting kept the layers from shifting.

Mom had little nails all along the top of the quilt frame. She would always have her backing larger than the quilt and batting. That way she was able to fasten the quilt to all four strips of wood and this really held the fabric tight. Then she trimmed the extra lining all around the quilt when finished. That way none of the nail holes were on the finished quilt.

I didn't make mine, but I bought one just like it. It worked very well for me.

My grandmother used one of these frames. She had a huge dining room and it hung from the ceiling in there. The room was large enough for many ladies to work at the same time. Yes, you roll it around the frame as it is completed so that at all times it is easy to reach the area being worked on. When she needed to use the table it was drawn up to the ceiling and you were able to walk under it. Wish I had the room for one just for the memories if nothing else. Can you imagine what the older ladies would think with all the new tools that we play with now a day? They only used cardboard for patterns, scissors, needles and thread and look what they accomplished!! My grandmother had many quilts when she passed away many year ago.

I just seen this question started in 2010 but thought I would respond.. My grandmothers use to use this method of quilting.. houses were small we as children we would play under these quilts growing up. she would pull the quilt up in the air and tie it down so it wont come down.. and we are dinner under the quilt.. and when everyone went to bed.. my mom and grandmother would hoist the quilt down and finish it... I still use this method of quilting today.. although I have mine on chairs now.. I have vaulted ceilings and don't need to hoist it up. . ty for sharing.