Large Quilts and Rotating Your Quilt

Hi,

When you use your machine quilting frame, you are limited by the length of the throat of your sewing machine and the width of your frame. You might have a frame that sets up to King size, but if the throat on your sewing machine is too small, you will run into trouble. Here is a work-a-round for this problem.

Directions for doing large quilts on your quilting frame

• Measure your quilt length and width. If the longest measurement is longer than 94 inches, you should fold the quilt in half to find the mid point along that edge.
• Mark the mid point with a straight or safety pin so you can easily see the pin. Click here for some really cool safety pin covers that make this process much easier: Mark both sides of the quilt, so no matter which end of the frame you are on, you will know when you have quilted to the mid point in your quilt. You will want to quilt a past the mid point so you can prepare to rotate your quilt.
• Once you have quilted past the mid point, roll your frame carriage off to the side of your frame. Use your safety pins to baste the rest of your quilt. The whole quilt will gather up on the "Take Up Rail" on your frame. When you get to the end of quilt and you see the leaders. Unpin the quilt top from the leader, but leave the quilt back leader still attached.
• Use your Fabri-Fast tool, or just pull on the leader out of the Fabri-Fast channel near the end of the leader. You shouldn't need to unpin either the take up rail leader or the quilt back leader.
• Turn your quilt end for end, with the quilt top still facing the ceiling.
• You can now roll the pin basted part of your quilt up on the take up rail. Take your time and smooth the quilt from the center out to the right then the left.
• you will need to attach the quilted part of your quilt to the quilt back rail. You only use two rails in this process.
• Position the quilt so you can work from the part of your quilt that is completed (quilted) to the end that is basted. You need to check under your quilt to make sure that there aren't any puckers each time you roll the quilt.
• Every time you roll your quilt, there will be less quilt rolled up under the arm of your sewing machine.
• Continue this process until you have completed the quilt

There might be other ways to get the same results, but this allows you to quilt large quilts without worrying about the quilt being too big.

We really like the Juki TL-98Q for doing most of our quilting. It has almost a nine inch throat, and is about six inches tall in the throat area, (harp). It really is the best sewing machine for the price that we have found. Click here to check it out