I have always hand quilted my quilts, and very occassionally will tie them. I am sending my first one out to be FMQ but after reading some of your comments, I am not sure I will like it. I have never machine quilted before so not sure where to even begin.

I quilt all of my own on my Bernina. It is dreamy!

I took classes from a local artist on quilting your quilt. She listed some well known books to bring if you had them. Some people checked them out from the library. The instructor started her class with turn to this page or that page in one of the books. Look at her stitching. Is it perfect? She is an award winning quilter. Then the same about someone else. The instructor then said for us to get over the perfect stitches thing. Unless your quilt is to be judged for money don't worry about it. Just have fun and do it. It was freeing for me...have been quilting my own since.

I quilt all of my own quilts on my Babylock. I enjoy the challenge of FM quilting and continue to learn and forgive the fact that my quilting is not perfect!

I have been told that I have done some amazing FM quilting on my featherwieght that a "beginer" might not tasckle. Long arm is something that I really would love to learn.

I have made 430 completed quilts in the 10 years I have been quilting. While my guild owns a LA, I am too disabled to use it. I wore out a Bernina and now use a Janome. A great many of my quilts have been Queen sized, some king sized. I have won way more than my share of prizes in the process. Most of my quilting is free motion, so I do one smallish area at a time, then shift to another. It does take longer than using a LA, but it's mainly a matter of focus.

Recently, a friend has offered to LA my quilts. I am delighted to accept her help, but her quilting is a bit boring, so I have her do some parts, leaving the rest to me. Right now I am doing the background and borders on a king sized wedding quilt. There was much less pin basting to do this way. Another friend suggested using a board to roll the pin bastin on. It works very well for the bastng. (4.5"x1"x10')

I do FMQ'ing on the Bernina & DH quilts for me on the A-1 longarm.

works for me.

I have always hand quilted, it just is my thing, but I am going to
work on doing machine quilting on my machine, just haven't
had the time to teach myself.

sorry, this just can't be done. with the longarm, you move the machine. think of it as the pencil and the quilt as the paper. Handiquilter does make a sit-down version though


I wonder if a longarm could be used without that huge frame. Just set it on a table as you would a regular machine and use it that way. It certainly would be easy with such a large throat space! It would be good for those of us who don't have the room for that big frame! :-)[/quote]