Do you need an extension table for quilting?

The confusion this page exists to clear up

Two things about a sewing machine limit a quilt, and they get mixed up constantly because both get described as “room”.

• The opening - the gap between the needle and the body of the machine, and the height under the arm. This is what a rolled quilt has to travel through. It is fixed by the casting and nothing you bolt on changes it.
• The surface - how much flat area the quilt rests on while you work. This is what the extension table changes, and it changes it a lot.

A table turns a free arm into a flat bed. The quilt stops cantilevering off the right-hand edge, stops pulling, and stops yanking stitch length around. What it does not do is make the arm bigger. If you are here because a queen quilt will not fit, read how much throat space you need instead - a table will not rescue that.

How we judged this

1. Does the maker publish the table’s dimensions? Most do not, which makes it impossible to compare what you are getting.
2. Is it in the box, or a separate purchase? A published carton line.
3. What does the machine footprint become with it fitted? This is the figure nobody thinks about until the table will not fit the desk.

What the makers actually publish

Two machines out of eight publish a figure. That is the state of the specification here, and it is why “comes with a wide table” on a product listing is worth close to nothing as a comparison point - a wide table could be a 4 in strip or it could be the Juki’s 23 in panel.

The arithmetic, using the one machine that publishes everything

Juki publishes the TL-2010Q machine dimensions as 452 mm wide x 350 mm high x 219 mm deep, the auxiliary table as 590 x 335 mm, and the dimensions with the auxiliary table fitted as 720 x 335 mm. Three published figures, and together they tell you exactly what the table does.

What the extra surface actually fixes

Free-motion quilting is a two-handed job in which the only thing controlling stitch length is how fast you move the quilt against how fast the needle runs. Anything that applies an uncontrolled force to the quilt shows up directly as uneven stitches.

The largest of those forces, on a domestic machine, is the weight of the part of the quilt that is not on the table. A queen quilt weighs several pounds, and a free arm supports perhaps a quarter of its area. The rest hangs - off the right-hand edge, off the back, off the front - and every one of those overhangs pulls.

• Stitch length evens out, because the quilt stops accelerating when a fold slips off the edge.
• You stop fighting at the corners. The overhang that drags hardest is the one that has just rotated past the edge.
• Straight-line work tracks better, for the same reason, though a walking foot does more for that than the table does.

The figure that catches people out: your desk

The TL-2010Q goes from 452 mm to 720 mm of width with the table fitted - 17.8 in to 28.3 in. Depth goes from 219 mm to 335 mm, 8.6 in to 13.2 in.

That is a machine that fits comfortably on a small desk becoming one that needs most of a 30 in table, with clear space on both sides for the quilt to spill onto. Before you buy a table - or a machine that ships one - measure the surface it has to live on. This is the most common reason a table ends up back in its box.

Built-in table, aftermarket table, or a custom insert?

• In the box. Shaped to the machine, no fitting, no measuring. Free, in the sense that you already paid for it. The only downside is that you get the size the maker chose, and six of the eight machines above will not tell you what that size is.
• Aftermarket acrylic. Sold by machine model, generally larger than the supplied one, and it sits at the same height as the bed. Check the model fit, because the cutout is machine-specific.
• A table with a drop-in insert. The machine sits in a recess so the bed is flush with a full-size work surface. The best result available on a domestic machine and the most expensive and least portable - and it is furniture, not an accessory.

For most people the answer is: use the one that came with the machine, find out whether the drag is gone, and only go further if it is not.

So, do you need one?

If you are quilting anything bigger than a wall hanging on a free arm, yes, and it is the highest-value few inches of plastic in the room. If you already have one and the quilt still will not go through the machine, the table is not your problem - the opening is, and the large-throat machines are the next step.

Who each pick is for

• Juki TL-2010Q - best for anyone who wants to know what they are getting: the only machine here that publishes the table size (590 x 335 mm) and the footprint with it fitted (720 x 335 mm).
• Brother PQ1600S - best for the largest published table of the Brother machines at 11.1 x 23.3 in, with a knee lifter and 1,500 spm behind it.
• Brother CS7000X - best for anyone who wants a wide table without leaving the budget tier, accepting that Brother publishes no dimensions for it.