quiltingfan

This quilt is humongous. It fits my California king bed. Unfortunately it is not for me !!😁it’s for my sons girlfriend for her graduation. I have only quilted on my Jenome and have enjoyed it and have done a pretty good job. I really wanted to quilt a pattern but now that I am sitting before my machine and have this huge quilt in front of me I have no idea what to do. Will try to attach pictures later.

rvsfan

The first thing I would do is determine how permanent this girlfriend may be. If you don't think she will be around forever, I would tell your son to buy her a quilt. If she's your future daughter-in-law, get to quilting.

donna13350

Even "future daughters in law" or even wives, can go..I wouldn't use that as a criteria. If you tell us what the pattern is maybe we can help you choose a quilting method/ and or design. In general, on a sit down machine, I would work very, very hard to roll one side tightly..but I have doubts that a Cali King size could ever fit under a domestic machine...I would roll as tightly as I could to the halfway point and see if it will even fit under your machine arm.
If it doesn't, there is a way that I saw where a lady only used batting down part of her quilt, she did it in thirds, starting with the center..she cut the batting in a wave pattern so there wouldn't be a permanent crease when she joined the outer 2 sides...that reduced the bulk and she was able to a large quilt on a domestic machine that way.
other than that, you may be looking at sending it out or renting a longarm...or handstitching!

Tartan

With a large quilt, I choose a quilting pattern that can be done by quartering the quilt. I do the upper half starting in the center and work upwards to the edge. I then go back to the center and work down to the bottom quarter edges. Then I completely rotate the quilt so that the other half can go into the machine harp and do the next two quarters the same way. Good Luck!

Sailorwoman

Check out Marti Mitchell's "Machine Quilting in Sections". It demonstrates several different ways of quilting a large quilt on a domestic machine. I used "low fat quilting' to do the quilt that is my avatar. It made it so much easier.

rjwilder

I'm with rvsfan above, is this for a girlfriend that has been with your son for a long time. Did she ask for a quilt, does she want a quilt? Many of us have gifted a quilt only to find out the receiver doesn't like quilts. Or we've gifted a quilt and find out it's not their colors, they wanted a smaller one or larger one and the quilt ends up in the closet or it becomes a regift or a dog bed.

WMUTeach

I quilt on my domestic too. I don't do fancy intricate feather wreaths or such but on large quilts I will quilt diagonally corner to corner or straight line and off set from the patterns of the blocks if the pattern is geometric. When in a hurry and if it fits the pattern of the blocks I will do wavy lines. (Great for quick baby quilts) When I do simple meandering on large or small quilts, I always mentally divide my quilt in quarters as mentioned by other posts. It makes the process so much easier, less manhandling of that large project under the needle.

bj

I would prob’ly have to tie it or big stitch quilt it by hand. (0: I have a hard time with a twin on my machine, I would NEVER be able to manage a king!

toverly

I quilted a huge one a king with a full drop. Never again. I did get thru it by conquering it in 4 sections. If you can get to the center, it can be done. If you can't get to the center, I'd get a long armer to do it. My advice is to do an all over. I did mine in what I call a loop de loop. Whenever I got into a corner with my quilting, I could loop de loop out since threads crossed over each other in the design. As long as I didn't go straight, it worked.

juliasb

I have already seen mention of quilting in sections which is exactly what I do with most of my very large quilts. I have one ready to do right now. It is already basted in 4 sections as is ready to go under the machine. I have done a number of quilts this way using different designs. The only reason this one quilt remains as it is right now is because I want to become proficient with ruler work before I start on this one.