ljwinemiller

I have been quilting for awhile but I have a terrible time quilting on a regular sewing machine, now I would love to have a long-arm but neither can I afford it or have the room for it. So I would like some suggestions on what I can do to finish my quilt. I have done the block by block method but find that alittle messy and I love all the patterns I see on here so just stitching in the ditch is boring and I can't manuver a large quilt around without messing up my machine, so I need some suggestons!

Lacelady

Save up for an HQ Sweet Sixteen Sit down - it comes in a table 30in x 36in, set level with the table and gives you BAGS of room to put the biggest quilt under it.

JCquilts

Im not sure what you can afford, but keep looking for used setups like Gracie Pro or HQ. They are much cheaper than a long arm. I just sold my Gracie Pro and Janome P16 for $800.

The throat size of the machine will limit what you can do, but there is plenty of room for 4 - 6 inch repeat edge to edge designs as well as meandering and stippling back fills.

ljwinemiller

Well guess I am not up on these new gadgets, never heard of them but I will look into it. My sewing room is 10x10 and it is also my guest room so it contain a futon right now along with allllllll of my sewing stuff so guess I will check into these and see what I can find. Are they on the internet or do I have to go to a quilt shop or fabric store to find thm? Thanks for all of your help!

JCquilts

My suggestion is craigslist for used equipment.

There are a few machine quilting forums that list used machines

And sometimes I just google the name of the machine I am looking for and see what comes up.

Thats how I found my Long Arm and how I sold my Gracie

romanojg

THE sweet 16 has a web site; just google it.

Holice

what size quilts do you want to quilt.

Prism99

Is there a large quilt show you can attend? There are usually lots of quilting setups at the large shows. I just attended one where there was an Easy Quilter demo. I was even able to sit down and try it out. Now I'm saving up for one! Here is a link:
http://www.easyquilter.com/

What I found with this setup is that it is much easier to move the machine than to move the quilt. What's unusual about this is that the cost is within reach: $450 to $550 depending on the harp of your machine. This is a good way to start finding out if you want to eventually purchase a long arm machine. I looked at the longarms at the show also, and the least expensive setup I would get if I had the money and the room was the 18" Innova for $8,000!

skippitydodahquilts

Is there an LQS in your area that offers rental services to use their longarm? That's what I do, and I love it!

PaperPrincess

You mentioned "I have done THE block by block method... ". There are at least 4 or 5 different quilt as you go methods that I know of. You might want to do some research to see if there is another QAUG technique that you like. I quilted most of mine in 3' X 3' sections. I found I could manoever the quilt pretty easily with this size chunk and joining the sections was pretty easy.