KatB

Happy New Year to all! I have a queen size SR2 Grace frame, with a Juki and Grace stitch regulator. I love the whole set up, but, am really new to long arm quilting. I just finished a 90x90 top (Waddington Road sampler-Block of the Month), that I want to custom quilt. The top will just fit on the cloth leaders, but, with the extra allowance for the backing and batting it will not. Has anyone dealt with this problem? Buying a larger frame is out of the question due to space restraints.

Thanks in advance for any help offered! I follow many of the threads on this site , and, am always impressed by the knowledge and experience here!

KatB

Pat M.

How big is the neck of the machine? Can the quilt be quartered and then quilt each quarter, then sew back together?

quiltmouse

It seems odd to me that 90" quilt plus extra width for backing won't fit on a queen sized frame. 90 is standard width for queen size quilt.

kristijoy

Could you just make the backing and batting smaller and be careful about the edges? I have the same setup, but I haven't done a queen size quilt.

I do think the throat space is going to get tight.

What I have done is a cross-hatch design. Instead of fancy free motion quilting I make a wavy line across the quilt every 3 inches or so. The throat space isn't as important because you are just doing One wavy line, then advancing the quilt. Now it's all attached. Then I take the quilt off the frame and rotate the quilt 90 degrees and do the same wavy line the other direction to get cross hatches. Sorry, I looked for a picture but don't have one of the quilt on the frame.

I've never tried this, but I've toyed with it in my mind to quilt a big quilt. I would consider first running it through 'basting' like every 6 or so inches, just do a line across to tack everything down. Then you could go back and do whatever FMQ you want until you get to the middle And then rotate the quilt 180 degrees to quilt it the other way meeting in the center. Then at most you've rolled up 1/2 of the quilt under the throat of the machine rather than the whole quilt. This would only work if there was a 'basting' type thing holding it together first.

Macybaby

The very first quilt I did fit my frame like that. (the frame was set up for queen size at the time) I didn't realize I needed to leave room for the machine as the needle can't go all the way to the edge.

This is the quilt - it was suppose to be queen and I got carried away. It's laid out on a king size bed.



I ended up leaving a section unquilted on both sides as my machine would not go that far over. After everything else was quilted, I took it off and did that section FM on my domestic machine. Was pretty easy since it was less than 10" on each end.

After that, I moved the LA to the dining room where I could have it set up king size, then I got a larger frame and now it's in it's own building.

selm

I haven't had your problem but I have quilted without extra on the sides. My have been mainly small quilts. You just have to be careful working around your clamps and keeping the edges even as you go but basting as you go does help that. If you trim excess off try to leave at least an inch for fabric movement. Top and bottom don't matter unless you turn the quilt as has been suggested because of bulkiness then you need to trim them too. You do need extra space for the machine so that is a problem. You could fold over the far end of the quilt(from the machine) so you leave space for the machine. Then you would have to turn the quilt and quilt the previously turned over part.

GEMRM

If your concern is getting the entire quilt, once quilted, onto the bar that's in the throat of the machine, I've done a quilt where I quilted as far as I could, then took it off, turned top to bottom, mounted the loose end of the backing to the bar in the throat region, layering the top and batting in the roll as I carefully wound up the unquilted portion to the take up bar.
Then I started to quilt from the already quilted part, which was on the belly bar up, checking for wrinkles and pleats each section before quilting.
Kind of reverse floating the top.
If my explanation is too difficult to make sense of, just PM me.