I know this is a strange question, but I have just completed machine quilting (stitch in ditch) a twin sized quilt on my sewing machine. It is not a project I am proud of. Pleats, gathers and any thing else that could go wrong. I can't seem to get the top tight enough to keep out the fullness. I am basically a hand quilter using a hoop and I have no touble at all with that. So, I was wondering if there is a hoop that I could use with my sewing machine. If anyone has any suggestions, I would appreciate it. I have another twin size to do and am not looking forward to it.

A walking foot will take care of the pleats and gathers. You do need to stretch out the quilt as tight as you can on a table where you have plenty of room to work, and then pin baste it. I'm not the best quilter in the world but that works for me. If you get the foot attached right on your machine, it absolutely works.

sassy granny

I have seen quilts hooped and FMQ, don't know why it wouldn't work for SID too. You do need a hoop that easily fits in the throat of your machine, and hooping often is the only drawback.

Maybe slightly stretch out your quilt back by pinning or taping it to the floor, then sandwich and baste. This keeps the puckers out of my quilts, as well as using a walking foot :D:D:D

I was using a walking foot but didn't seem to help. I'm sure I had it attached right. Also, my maching was giving me fits. That was another thing going wrong.

Funny you should ask ... I was reading two books on thread work (thread painting and other detail work) and both mentioned using hoops in the machine to stabilize the fabric and thought ... huh?

Then I went to Paducah and on Sharon Schambers booth, she was there quilting away on muslin with no markings and she was using hoops to stablize!! They were called "Quilt Halo's" and she had four of them stacked together.

The neat thing about these is that you don't put the quilt "in" them like an embroidery hoop - you just place the hoop over the quilt and around the needle (the hoops are something like 8" round) so it's easy to pick them up and keep moving around the quilt.

Here's a link to her site where she sells them.

http://www.sharonschamber.com/shoppi...ewproducts.htm

I've also seen embroidery type hoops where you insert the quilt inside two concentric hoops and clamp them together - but these are flatter for machine work. Don't remember where I saw them, perhaps in one of the books I was reading.

Started quilting the other twin size quilt. It is going a lot better. I changed batting to a low loft. I then sandwiched it on the floor and pined it down the middle then put in on my sewing table to finish pining. It layed out a lot better and the quilting doesn't cross as many intersecting lines on this one. That is where I usually have so much trouble. Plus my husband worked on my machine and was able to raise the feed dogs just a small fraction. Really helped.