Hi friends,
I found a set of used quilting frames for $10 at the local flea market yesterday. Perfect timing as my DD has just about finished up her quilt top. They are unusual as they have nails sticking up on the stand parts and the boards have holes in them that slip over the nails. I have two concerns- one is that I need something to slip over the nails both while they're being using and when they're being stored, and the other lesser concern is that the boards are not big enough to have the whole quilt stretched at the same time.

It wouldn't be bad to quilt half the quilt at a time as we are limited on space or I can invest in a couple of extra long boards and do the whole thing- as I'm more accustomed. How long do the boards need to be to quilt for a king? queen? full?

One lady suggested I just put spools over the nails. I was thinking maybe some kind of ball. All suggestions welcomed!

 There are several ways to get a quilt into a frame; I'll try to explain one or 2.

One way is to lay the layers out on a very clean floor or similar large surface and baste it together with long stitches. I like doing a star burst type basting, starting in the center with each line of basting and working it out to the edges, in a star burst pattern. This way it works out any unevenness between front and back. Some people like to use many safety pins instead of thread basting. In my opinion safety pins just get in the way when stitching.

The quilt frame poles should be slightly padded and wrapped with fabric like muslin or an old, but still strong sheet; take the short end of the quilt sandwich and baste it to the fabric wrapped pole, then carefully and smoothly roll you quilt sandwich around that pole, leaving an amount of quilt unwrapped to work on. Baste the opposite end to the other pole, then stretch it tightly into you frame. To tighten the sides pin a long rectangle of scrap fabric around the raw edge front to back, so that it covers the raw edge,  then using strips of scrap fabric or twill tape, pin one end of each strip to the quilt side thru the scrap rectangle and the other end fasten to the side bar, either by pinning it to the nail, or if your strip is long enough wrap it around the side bar, bring it around and pin it to itself. Do this with enough strips to hold the sides secure. Now you are ready to quilt the exposed part of the quilt. When all that area is quilted, undo the sides, roll the quilted part onto the the empty pole and unroll another section from the full pole. Then reattach the sides just like before.  To quilt the ends baste a large piece of scrap fabric to the ends of the quilt, then baste the end of the scrap fabric to the pole and tighten as necessary by rolling the poles into position. When the quilting is finished take it off the frame and finish the binding.

A second way to quilt it is; after getting the quilt sandwich basted to the poles, you can roll it to the center area of you quilt and start there, working towards the ends.

A third way is with a large hoop: after basting put a section of the quilt into a quilting hoop and tighten it like you would if you were doing embroidery. Then move from section to section. The edges can be worked on by adding a scrap piece to the sides and holding it tight in the hoop.

Another way with a large frame is to work with 3 poles on each end, each with it's own clamp, each board end is clamped to the side board using C clamps or something similar( where the nails are on yours) clamp it after it is rolled with the layer it holds. Obviously with the nails you can't do this.  This is a frame that is made of 1x4's or 2x4 lumber. The quilt backing is rolled and tightened on the first set of poles, the batting on the second set and it sets above the backing, and the third set holds the quilt top. They are all 3 aligned and tightened. You don't need to baste the whole quilt together first this way.  With this method the backing and batting should be longer than the top; when quilting is completed the excess is cut off even with the top, and the binding applied. Any time I make a quilt I always have the backing and batting several inches bigger than the top to make sure that there will be enough for the sides to be finished. I learned this by finishing one and not having enough batting for the ends and side. Not a good thing.

I hope this makes sense. Let me know if you have any questions; I'll try to find an answer for you. Edey

 Wow it sounds so much more complicated than when we do one at our women's group.  We have 4 large boards and 4 c clamps- the boards form a square and each corner has a clamp.  Then there are stands that support the whole frame or you can just set them on the backs of chairs.  They stretch out the bottom/backing and tack it with thumb tacks right to the board, then set the batting on top, then add the top and stretch it tight and retack all three layers.  After they quilt the edges, they roll the quilt up removing tacks as needed.  Then quilt more, roll more until done.

 I will suggest the basting part to DD since this frame is not big enough but I'll see how much the extra boards would be to just do a big quilt the way I"m used to. Thanks for the suggestions and I'll have to take lots of pics!