dcamarote

I have been thinking along the same lines. I wish I had a larger throat area to accomodate some quilts I do. I have a Baby Lock and it is about 3 years old. I love the machine. But, my next one will have at least a 9 inch throat. Maybe they don't want to compete with the Longarms???

QandE2010

I have a 2170 Pfaff that I quilt king size quilts on. It just takes lots lof patience and "fluff and Stuff" like someone said. Good luck in your hunt.

quilter1943

I've got a Viking MegaQuilter - all I use it for is quilting. You still have to move the fabric rather than moving the machine, but it's better than using a short arm machine.

janny40

Check out the Bailey's home Quilter. I have a 15 inch long arm. It is a everything manual and mind cost about $1900.00

callen

I also have the Juki 98Q & it is a work horse. It runs about $1100.00 here in Canada. It only does straight stitches forward & reverse but it will sew thru 10 layers of denim. As the other lady said 'I LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!!" I believe the throat opening is 9". When I first started quilting, that was the machine that I used. I now have a Bernina Series 8 Model 820 & it has a throat opening of 12" & comes with all the bells & whistles. I don't know about U.S. prices but here in Canada they range between $7500 - 8500. so the price makes it out of the range of a lot of people. It is a wonderful machine & the bobbin holds double the thread of a regular machine & it even counts down the amount of thread when it starts to get low (which I love) I hate finishing a seam & finding out that I had run out of bobbin thread, which unfortunately I have done many times with the Juki (that would be my only complain about the Juki). For a plain work horse, the Juki is a great machine but if you want extras (& after a while we usually have a wish list) than you have to look elsewhere. I hear that Janome makes a good machine at a pretty affordable price. Good luck with your search.

MacThayer

I think the one point that hasn't been addressed here is that it is very hard to learn to FMQ when you're struggling with a large quilt on a machine with a small throat. I'm still a "Newbie" at FMQ, and I was so exasperated after my last large quilting adventure, that I gave up on doing whole quilts on my machine. And it's not my machine, it's me. I have a beautiful Janome MC9700 that runs like a dream. It just has a relatively small harp. My solution was to turn to quilting in pieces. Kind of the "quilt as you go" style. You can actually break apart almost any quilt, at least into fourths, quilt each fourth, and then put them together without much trouble.

Is this a great long term solution? No, of course not. But it will work until I'm really secure with my FMQ and can deal with doing it in a small space instead of needing to have a bigger space to see what I'm doing. Then I can go back to "squishing the quilt" and whole quilt quilting again. It's a learning curve.

Somewhere down the road, perhaps I'll get good enough to justify buying a quilting machine. It means I'd have to be good enough to quilt other people's quilts too, because that's what I'd have to do to help pay for it, and that means less time for my own quilting. It's always a trade off. Or maybe by then they'll make a machine I can afford that has a bigger harp. Wouldn't that​ be wonderful!

squires1042

Some of the 18" throat machines can be set up in a table instead of the frame so that you don't need as much room.

The price is not going to be that much cheaper unless you have someone who can make a drop down table for you.

Marie4403

Hi
I have a Janome 6600 which quilts beautifully. The more I use this machine the more I love it.

nightquilter

Bernie, I am not sure what you are wanting was it a quilting machine to use on a table because of lack of space? I bought a long arm ( sorry, mid-arm quilting machine last year)the frame takes up some space but I can whole-heartly tell you I love my machine.The complete set up was very reasonable and made in America I bought afew things extra, a grace pro frame, up-grade carriage, stitch regulator and some more stuff.The machine starts at 1599.PM me if you would like more info.These machines come in 13,15,and17".Great service and support.