Longarm Tables

There has been, past and present, comments and chatter on line as to what size table to buy with the longarm machine. The obvious factor is how much space have you got. If it's going into a full size garage or a good sized basement simple answer...how big do they make it. But for most of us it's a room in the house...we were lucky it was the living room and at 16' 5" X 13' 6" we had plenty of room for a 12' table with enough room to walk around the machine, all around, both ends and behind. With that said...it is important to remember that the machine can only travel so far right and so far left on the table. So which ever table you get you have to give up some of that table width. In our case, with our machine and table that is about 2'...12' table or not we would be hard pressed to quilt anything wider than 120"...The following photos will hopefully give you the visual image I'm talking about. The machine is as far right and as far left as it will go the way it is adjusted for us to operate it ergonomically and comfortably. I could get a couple of more inches but I'd have to move the handles and that is just not practical.

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Above is as far right...the handle is in contact with the frame and the needle is as far right as it can go. Below, same thing on the travel to the left.

So...your table size is going to depend on how much room you have with the understanding that a 12' table doesn't mean a 12' quilt. We might have been able to put a 14' table in...the room has wide door ways at both ends and we could have gotten around the longer table...but we thought about doing something wider than 10', probably not very common...and probably more like a tent or a sail than a quilt. I mean think about it; a King Size with a 20" drop and a standard 10" tuck is only 116" X 110"...anything bigger would be a sail.