Hand Quilting Full-Size Without a frame
 

Do you? How? Hoop? Round, square? Tips.?

14/16" wooden hoop.

There are many ways to hand quilt.
My way is with a round hoop. I use a size 10 between (needle), and a leather thimble. That is the only kind that works for me.
As for stitches- I try to be consistent. I try to get them as small as I can but consistency is the key. Mine have gotten smaller the longer I've quilted.
There is also big stitch hand quilting which I think is cool. I'm going to try my hand at that in the future.
You will get a lot of opinions and whatever works for you is the right way :)

I have not done a bed sized quilt, but have done many lap sized. I always use a hoop. It is by Dritz, is plastic, round, and has a bolt and wing nut to tighten. You can tighten to whatever you like.

I have had this for years, and I love it. It still looks brand new, although I have used it so many times.

I use a round wooden hoop that I got at Joann Fabrics several decades ago. It looks pretty similar to this one: http://www.joann.com/edmunds-round-q...n/9814666.html. I like having one with the ability to adjust the spacing between the the hoops (by tightening or loosening the wing nut). This makes it possible to adjust the hoop for quilts with different thicknesses.

I've only hand quilted small pieces. If you are in a warm climate, you may want look into getting some sort of quilt stand to get the quilt off your lap and keep you from getting too warm from having a quilt in your lap.

No hoop for me, I hand baste and quilt in my lap. I also hand quilt year round in Arizona...

I hand baste and quilt in my lap. For king size quilts, I assemble in six, 20 " strips, quilt the strips, then assemble the strips and finish quilting over the strip line. The final quilt size is 20"x6" 120". Notice that each strip, being 20inches uses 42" fabric cut on the fold to give 21" and 1/2" seams for the backing. (no waste). Quilting large quilts in strips reduces the weight on my shoulders and arms, and is easily managed.

I use a wooden, oval hoop about 20" x 12". You just have to baste well, either with pins or thread. Works well and is highly portable.

For a full size quilt I used a 20 inch round hoop that can either be used on a stand or on its own. Prepped by thread basting as the quilt will be in an out of the hoop quite a lot. I used Sharon Schamber's method. The only difficult came when doing the borders/edges. I stitched a bit of waste fabric around the edges so there would be something to anchor into the hoop. Some hoops have a bar attachment to do edges. There are also border hoops which are sort of D-Shaped.

HettyB

I usually use a 14-16" round hoop in my lap. I hand quilt anything from baby to king size quilts. I've also gone hoopless on occasion but having it in the hoop makes it easier for me to find where I left off my last quilting session. I've not noticed a difference in consistency in my stitches either hooped or not as I generally have my sandwich quite lose in the hoop.

I, too, hand quilt year round in this fashion and it gets mighty warm & humid in these parts come summer!