My HQ Sweet Sixteen quilting machine which is turned needle in front to face me(with no feeddogs) has the possibility but honestly I find it very hard to think and to make the movement sideways. I am so very used to forward/backward (up/down), that I think it would be hard to retrain my brain. I do it sometimes if it is a very short seam, but otherwise I can't get it straight.
But I haven't seen in on an actual machine with feed dogs... Do you have to replace them depending on which way you want to move? Or at least manipulate them from one position to the other?