So my rather tall son is getting married to the sweetest young woman. Ambitious mom is making a Cal King quilt for the bride and groom. The top is done and finnished at 10 ft x 10 ft (120"x120")). This means that right now I just finnished spray bastig a back 135 "x135" backing onto a similar size batting. Next I am spray basting the 10 feet square top center onto that. After that it is supposed to go on a Janome 6500. The throat is a bit larger then most standard machines but the couple extra inches are not going to make THAT much difference. HELP! I already told DS if I can't do it I might just tie it till I ever get a long arm. LOL About three more weeks till the wedding.

Since you've already spray-basted to the backing, I'm not sure this will help.

You can separate the batting into 3 pieces. This eliminates the bulk on each side while you are machine quilting the center. I first saw this technique described in detail in a book by Debra Wagner. Marti Michell now has a book out on how to do it. A long time ago I posted how to do it, and someone later PM'd me that it had worked very well for you. Later on, if I can find my old post, I will link it here.

Haven't found my old post (200 pages of old posts to work through!). However, here is a link to the Marti Michell book:
http://www.amazon.com/Machine-Quilti.../dp/B000NNGZJE

I'm not absolutely certain, but I think this is the Debra Wagner book that has excellent instructions on this technique:
http://www.amazon.com/Traditional-Qu...dp/0801986605/

you might want to find a good friend with a long arm that will let you borrow some time on it. I am having trouble with an over sized twin that is almost the size of a full/double. on my home machine. but then again my machine is really small in size.

Use the nest technique instead of rolling the quilt. It's always helped me overcome similar problems.

http://daystyledesigns.com/faq.htm#roll

Keep bringing on the ideas! I am reading. Thanks!!!!!!

The quilt has sashing and blocks that are set on point so I am not sure how the three pieces of batting would have worked but I can sure see this for another quilt. Never thought of it and so simple.

I think I normally nest but was planning to roll this time so I will definitely need to read the nest technique.

Alas no friends with long arms and I have like $0 right now available to pay anyone. I think the Lord wants to humble me and have me do this one on the home machine.

I did opt for warm and natural over the 80/20 since I can quilt it every ten inches or so versus every four.

Thank you sofar for all the feedback.

A king sized quilt will go through a Janome 6500. I have now done three King sized quilts on my Janome 6500. After my quilt is basted-pinned securely, I stitch down the lengthwise centre (this is the hardest of all) and then stitch through the centre width-wise. My quilt is then divided in four and I quilt one quadrant at a time. I am not an expert machine quilter by any means but was able to machine quilt these big quilts quite satisfactorily. It helps to have extra table space around your machine to hold the weight of your quilt. My machine is in a cabinet, so I pull it out from the wall and put a fold up table from Costco behind it for extra support. I don't really roll my quilt but "puddle" or bunch it up a little to get where I want to quilt. By twisting and turning, eventually your quilt will get done.

If you were planning to machine quilt diagonally, then I think it would work fine on this type of quilt as long as you also cut the batting diagonally. The middle piece would go from one corner to the other corner.

The trick to getting the pieces of batting to match up perfectly is to cut the batting with a rotary cutter using a large "S" pattern. Put some registration marks along the cut edge, and also mark the batting pieces (such as "top right" and "top left") to make sure you reassemble the batting exactly as it was. Debra Wagner recommended hand tacking the batting together using a tailor's tack stitch, but it probably works just as well to use a wide and long machine zigzag. Cutting in the large "S" curves makes sure the quilt does not ultimately develop a fold line where the batting pieces were sewn back together.

I did a king size quilt set on point and did it on a small dinky Brother - I started in the middle and worked out. It was just bulky but it worked fine. I did SITD.

I think you should dangle a carrot. Promise yourself something amazing at the end. Trust me. You will deserve it.

LOL You are so right. I think just being done will thrill me beyond pieces. My son is aware I am strugling and I do not want him to know really. I am so looking forward to working on anything but this quilt but maybe the next one should be a project I want to work on just for me and something not so large. Definitely piecing, learning to use some of those fun new rules I bought and not quilting for a month or two. Maybe I can dream about my reward project as I am struggling with the anaconda. Some how all I can think about is a long arm machine. Hehehehe