My earlier years of machine quilting on my Pfaff were interesting. The arm space of a regular sewing machine is about seven inches. It was difficult for me to fit my quilt into this small space and let alone even quilt it. Of course I read many books and magazines on doing machine quilting and I practiced what I had read. I rolled my quilt up like a “hot dog” to make it fit. I lowered the feed dogs, and concentrated on moving my quilt to create the pattern I desired. Once I had achieved a particular space, I moved my quilt and off and repeated the quilting process on another space of my quilt. Since I was working in a limited space, I chose only to machine quilt small projects and only up to a lap size quilt. There are many quilters that are proficient at quilting on their domestic home machine and I applaud them!

A long arm quilting machine is different from a domestic machine in several ways. First, it does not have feed dogs to move the fabric thru. Instead, it has a hopping foot that moves up and down with every stitch. Second, the entire head of the machine is moving as you quilt, not the quilt itself. The quilt is mounted to a large frame with leader cloths and the long arm machine is on a “cross track” frame that moves along the top of a table. So, as you are quilting; it is as if you’re moving the needle to create the design patterns.

Both the domestic and long arm machines have a place and a purpose and I still use them both. If you only have a domestic machine, expand your horizons and try to do machine quilting. It will definitely challenge your creativity!

~ Quilter Ann

This article courtesy of http://www.Quilts4You.com. You may freely reprint this article on your website or in your newsletter provided this courtesy notice and the author name and URL remain intact.
©2010 Quilts 4 You