Frequently asked questions

The opening between the needle and the body of the machine - the tunnel a rolled quilt passes through. It has two dimensions, width and height, and both matter even though usually only the width is advertised.

Yes. Two names for one measurement. “Harp” is more common among quilters and in longarm marketing; “throat” is more common on domestic spec sheets. Neither is more correct.

About 4 inches of height for a throw, 5 to 6 for a twin, 6 for a queen, and more than any domestic machine offers for a king. Height binds before width because a rolled quilt is a cylinder. The banded working is on the throat space guide.

Among machines publishing both dimensions on this site, the Juki TL-2010Q and TL-2000Qi at 215 x 150 mm - 51 square inches. By advertised width the Janome MC6700P leads at 10.04 in, but its published height of 4.72 in gives it the smallest opening of the serious quilting machines here.

4 x 4 in (100 x 100 mm), 5 x 7 in (130 x 180 mm), 6 x 10 in (160 x 260 mm) and 8 x 12 in (200 x 300 mm) - 16, 35, 60 and 96 square inches. The cross-brand table is on the hoop size chart.

No. The embroidery field is how far the machine’s carriage travels and it is fixed in hardware. A hoop larger than the field cannot be stitched to its edges even if it mounts. Hoops can go smaller; nothing goes bigger.

119% bigger by area: 35 square inches against 16. That is the largest single step anywhere in the embroidery category - the next step up, 5 x 7 in to 6 x 10 in, is only 71%.

The Brother SE2000, mostly because it is wireless LAN enabled, so designs go from a computer to the machine without a USB stick. It also has the largest screen at that tier at 3.7 in.

Three: combination machines that sew and embroider, embroidery-only machines that do not sew at all, and multi-needle machines that carry four to ten threads and change color without stopping. Full detail on the types page.

Only if your designs have several colors and you stitch in volume. Needles solve color changes, so if your work is one or two colors they solve nothing and the money is better spent on field size.

Not properly. A structured cap front curves in two directions and will not sit flat in a standard hoop. It needs a cylindrical cap frame, and on this site only the Brother PR680W and PR1055X publish cap frame capability.

Yes, if the feed dogs drop or can be covered and a darning foot is available. What limits you is throat opening against finished quilt size rather than the machine’s capability. We work through it on this page.

An authorized dealer listed the Handi Quilter Amara 20 at 12,995 US dollars on 1 September 2026, with 20 inches of throat and up to 2,500 stitches per minute. Prices vary by dealer and by what frame and accessories are included.

Because they are not sold on Amazon. Handi Quilter, Gammill, APQS, Innova, Bernina Q-series and Baby Lock longarms are authorized-dealer only - we checked every retail result on 1 September 2026 and all were dealer storefronts. There is nothing honest to link.

No. We have tested none of them and we say so on every commercial page. What we do instead is compile published specifications, normalize the units, cite every figure to the manufacturer page it came from, and show the arithmetic - the full method is here.

Because the manufacturer does not publish them. Brother lists no maximum embroidery speed for the SE600, SE700, SE1900, PE800, NQ3550W or the Luminaire XP3. We leave those cells empty and name the manufacturer rather than estimating a plausible number.

Because a remembered price is a wrong price and a stale one looks like information. Prices render from a live data layer, and when it holds nothing under 48 hours old every button reads “check price” and takes you to the current listing.

Amazon Associates commission on qualifying purchases made through links here, at no extra cost to you. We are in no other affiliate program. The full statement is on the disclosure page.

No, and there are mechanisms rather than a promise: the five ranking criteria are published and none is commercial, every roundup names something to skip, and the entire longarm tier that earns us nothing still gets a page.

Scooter M., an enthusiast. No credentials, no test lab, no tenure claims - the author page sets out exactly what the byline does and does not claim.

Use the contact form or email info@hoopandhem.com. Corrections are the one kind of message we always answer, and they get published with the date they were made.