Hi I'm the Newby from Indiana and soooooo excited to be here and learn. Last winter I pieced 4 king size pinwheel patriotic tops and have not yet quilted this size in my Sapphire 850. Wonder how one keeps the four sections from having excess fabric as normally I stipple quilt from the middle out. Any helpful information would be appreciated. Pat P whoops mispelled quadrants!

I haven't done a king size yet, but I have done queen size on my small brother machine.

I start by placing the layers out on a bed, attaching the layers with spray adhesive. I neatly fold 5in widths up to the middle from both sides (kind of like rolling, but I fold and smooth as I go). I take it to the machine this way. Now I stitch a straight stitch down the center (I have rolls on either side, so it fits int he throat fine). I repeat this going the other direction. Now I have 4 quadrants. For a larger quilt, I then sew additional lines, say making quadrants in each section following this method.

Now the quilting. When I am working on a quadrant, I have the rest of the quilt in a fold/roll, so it will fit the throat and also so i can easily manuever it.

you still quilt from the center out to avoid any wrinkles/bunching fabric, that and baste very well, either with needle and thread (recommended technique) or with safety pins or with basting spray.

You can divide the batting into three sections (not the top and backing), baste and quilt the middle section, then add one of the batting pieces to quilt the side, etc. There are several threads here on how to do that; try the "search" feature on the website. Also Marti Michell has a book out on how to do this. Makes quilting a king-size quilt on a domestic machine much easier.

Just puddle it and use a lot of cusswords

I am guessing your are right. Trying to get brave enough to try it myself.

so true....lol

Too funny! Puddling works best for me too. I find it difficult to work with it rolled. Sometimes I do a combination usually of folding/puddling.

After I spray baste a large quilt, I machine baste it with water soluable thread a few times in each direction. It helps hold it together better for me. I don't have a sewing room, so mine gets bounced around alot. This saves me from respraying the edges after all the handling. Once the quilt is done, I wash it and the basting dissolves. It works great!

I love the idea of the water soluable thread. I'll give that a try on my next large quilt. I tend to like the larger quilts. I like to puddle my larger quilts. I tried rolling and clips, but for me puddling works better. I will say it's quite a workout wrestling all that fabric around! I'm always sore in my upper back and arms. That's probably a good thing, LOL.

what a great idea!!