Carleneky

I inherited an antique quilting frame, consisting of two long poles and two short poles both with tacks and holes. I also have two horses with holes. Because my room won't accommodate the long and short poles, it seems that I might use the short poles on the horses, affixing them with nails and c clamps. Are these the correct steps for my setup:
1. Put backing on the floor, right side down.
2. Put the batting on top of the backing.
3. Put the quilt top right side up on top of that.
4. Pin all three together pulling as tightly as I can.
5. Attach excess backing portion to the long rail with tacks
6. Roll all three layers onto that rail leaving the portion I want to quilt and tack it to the other pole.

Should I also attach some fabric strips to the quilt sides and connect to horses in order to draw it taut and move these (might be called leaders) strips prior to rolling after I complete a section.

osewme

Here's a video that might help you. I don't think this frame in the video is like yours but it might help you some.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLgSiKLDWpc

illinois

The "antique" frames that I have seen/used have a strip of heavy fabric (pillow ticking) nailed to the long poles. There are loose strips hanging from the poles at your right and left and those will help keep the quilt taut on the crosswise. Your description sounds like you will need the strips to fasten to the quilt on the sides and then around the horses.
If you have the ticking strips on the long poles, you can use pins rather than tacks to attach your quilt sandwich to those ticking strips. You have the sandwich construction correct.

Jan in VA

Your word "tacks" puzzles me a bit. Frames with tacks were often used for other purposes such as stretching crocheted pieces (tablecloths?) for drying/starching. Quilting frames didn't have tacks usually because they used fabric attachments to the rails to which one pinned or basted the quilts. It seems to me that tacks are too likely to hurt the arms of quilters who tend to rest an arm on those rails.

They looked more like this: https://www.lehmans.com/product/old-...-quilt-frames/
Jan in VA

Ariannaquilts

I was wondering if the frame you are referring to is the one used when hand quilting? From your description it sounds like the one they use at my quilt guild when they hand quilt some of the quilts the group has made.