Kappy

I'm with you on that one....don't have that kind of money or space. SID is hard...I did see a tutorial about making a small arc from corner to corner...it also showed a graph description so you went across then down and magically back across and all the squares were done. It looked great and I know I printed it out, just don't don't know where I put it! LOL

marla

It looks like a nice quilt. Could you use your darning foot-stitch around the stars and then do fmq? do one block at a time. start in the center and work out.
I tried SITD to do a large quilt and moving the quilt, repostioning it for each direction, was hard on my back and arms. You could find some patterns for quilting, trace onto paper and then follow the pattern as you sew, using your darning foot.

katiebear1

Yeah the are very pricey and the take up a lot of space. I have a Pfaff That has a ten inch throat opening and I can quilt a king size fairly easily. Mine was $1000 on sale .but it was worth it ...much better than 10,000 :-D

QuilterGary

I have read almost every idea on 9 pages. I have marked several of them. I have about 15 or so tops. I have completed one baby quilt SID. Did not like how it turned out but hey it was my first. Sent it to the family and did not get one complaint and I see it in the baby pictures all the time. I have just completed top and pieced back for a throw size quiltfor a friend. After reading here today I think I will do 1/4" away from the seam on it. Then I will work on a practice pad for FMQ'ing. The reason I have so many tops not quilted I have been afraid to start. I guess I will bite my lip and just do it.

marthahelen

My sister just finished a king size quilt and she ended up using her dining room table to hold the bulk of the quilt.Maybe this will help you. Don't give up. We've all been there at one time or another.

atomicblond

Thank you for this topic. I have the same problems. If I think ahead I try to quilt in sections before I put the whole quilt together. However, with some patterns that idea doesn't work so well. I like the idea of the safety pins and the big clips. I will try to use that.
I keep checking for long arms on sale and online, but I haven't been lucky enough to find one yet.

lewisl

Looking at your photo, I see that you have your machine on a regular sewing machine table. This will never work out well for a large quilt, as it is certain to fall towards the floor both front and back as you work on it, with the weight of it making the quilt very difficult to maneuver and turn. I think you'd find it much, much easier if you can do your work on the largest table you can find that provides a comfortable height for your machine work. Maybe you could find a church or other meeting place that would let you push two tables together and put your machine on those to work on your quilt.

Not that it can ever be easy to actually quilt something this big on a home machine with a small throat space. And of course it's not realistic to suggest that you run out and spend the money for a longarm machine (to say nothing of finding a place for it).

I'd try to find a longarm quilter who would quilt this for you for a price you're comfortable with--you can check out the classified sections of various quilting magazines for people who do this work or you could ask for recommendations from local quilt shops or guilds.

Good luck with this quilt. It will be beautiful when you're done.

L.L.

Grace Giaimo

I've tried all of the great suggestions. The only one I would add is to prevent puckering, stitch in the ditch around each block. This insures that you are only dealing with a small section at a time and it is secure while working with each block.

Scraps

My first quilt was a queen size to the floor - should make it my Avatar - I was bound determined I was doing it ALL. I have a nice Brother machine, but of course with a small throat. I rolled and rolled my quilt half way - hung it over a table and over my shoulder. Now, I didn't do fancy schmancy quilting, but waves and it worked, but wasn't easy. BUT I do feel good for doing it ALL. I'm sure my quilt would be more beautiful if a longarmer had done it and I might go that route someday. So far I have done six smaller quilts on my machine. Good Luck - Have fun with it!

Scraps

PS and lots and lots of safety pins!