Longarm Quilting Machines
Quilting has an ancient history, going back to days when knights in armor wore quilted fabric underneath their heavy suits to prevent chafing on their skin. It made sense to them - and their tailors - that quilted fabrics, comprising three or more layers sewn together, were warmer than ordinary layered fabrics. Soon, quilted fabric began showing up in medieval bed chambers, providing warmth and comfort during sleep.
Recent History Of Quilting
Pioneers and settlers used quilting as a way of recycling clothing that still had some wear left to it. By cutting "good" scraps of fabric from worn-out garments and sewing those pieces together, pioneer women created larger pieces that could be backed with feed sacks, filled with cotton batting, and quilted together to form a warm bed cover at virtually no cost.
Modern Quilting
Sewing machines moved quilting along technologically as quilters used machines to do their piecework to form quilt tops instead of sewing the scraps of fabric together by hand. However, most quilters still used hand-quilting to do their actual quilting - the sewing together of layers of fabric. Some quilters were purists, who didn't consider machine quilting to be authentic quilting. Others would have been only too happy to let the sewing machine do the quilting work for them, but they couldn't figure out how to fit a 96-inch wide quilt beneath the arm of a standard sewing machine.
Then, in the 1980s, along came longarm quilting machines.
Longarm quilting machines are the latest innovation to turn the quilting world upside down. A longarm quilting machine is mounted on a table with rollers. The quilter merely feeds their quilt onto the table through the rollers, sets the desired pattern on the quilting machine, and the machine does the rest.
Quilting On A Regular Sewing Machine
This can be done, but it is very difficult. The easiest pattern to follow if you want to do machine quilting on a regular sewing machine is just to sew straight quilting lines along the seam lines of the patchwork quilt top. This is known as a "stitch in the ditch," because the quilting stitches end up in the small indentation in the surface of the fabric that is created by a seam line.
Quilting By Hand
Plenty of home quilters still quilt by hand, using a portable frame to hold their work in place. In lieu of a frame, a quilter can use hand basting stitches to hold a quilt together while it is being quilted. Just lay all three layers (backing, batting, and top) out on the floor. Starting in the center of the quilt top, sew large basting stitches to the outer edge in all four directions, plus a diagonal line of basting in all four directions. Use thread in a contrasting color so you can find and cut the basting stitches without too much trouble when the quilt is finished.
