Quilt Qua
Helping to Expand Your Creative Expression
Choose the Right Sewing Machine for Machine Quilting
By: Penny Halgren
Penny: Are some machines better than others for machine quilting? Do you have an opinion about what makes the difference? Which ones might have a larger opening so you can stuff the quilt through?
Monika: I do machine quilting—the most popular machine I sell for that is the Janome 6600 because it has the largest open-arm space so it allows you to get a lot of your larger quilts in there.
So you have to decide if you’re looking for a machine just for quilting, if you want a variety of stitches- do you want, for instance, the hand-quilting stitch, do you want a blanket stitch, do you want speed, are you looking more for the perfect straight stitch.
You want to make a decision about the type of machine to use based on the technique you’re going to be doing. Also are you going to work with a lot of the larger spools of thread?
These particular machines have spool holders on the outside that will support these larger spools of thread, where a regular machine or a smaller version you’re going to have to use some kind of adapter in order to feed that thread to the machine.
Now there are a couple of other machines that you can use for machine quilting, but they’re strictly straight-stitch machines.