Longarm Lingo

Just like any creative hobby or unique profession, longarm quilting comes with its own language—full of fascinating terms and mysterious acronyms that might sound like code to outsiders. To make your journey into the world of quilting even more enjoyable, we’ve stitched together a fun glossary of unique quilting words and their definitions for you to explore!

All Over Design (AOD): A continuous quilting pattern that extends across the entire surface of the quilt, without consideration for the layout or piecing of the quilt top.

Basting: Temporarily holding the quilt layers (top, batting, backing) together before quilting. Often using pins, spray baste, or large stitches.

Batting: The middle layer of the quilt sandwich between the quilt top and back. Often a fluffy cotton or polyester material.

Binding: A fabric edging sewn around the quilt’s perimeter to finish it.

E2E: Edge-to-Edge. Another term for an allover design.

Frame: The longarm table assembly to which the layers of the quilt are attached to be stitched by the quilting machine head.

Free-Motion Quilting (FMQ): Moving the quilting machine head to stitch with one or both hands. Also called ‘hand-guided or ‘hand-driven’ quilting.

Hand-guided: Creating stitches and designs on a quilt by moving the longarm by hand as opposed to it being computer-guided.

Loading: The process of attaching quilt pieces to the longarm frame in preparation for stitching.

 LA: A common acronym for longarm.

Longarm Quilting Machine: A large stitching machine (similar to a sewing machine) on a frame or table with free movement for stitching the layers of a quilt together.

Panto (Pantograph): A continuous, repeating design pattern used for quilting. Often referring to a printed design on a paper roll the length of a quilt frame.

Quilt Sandwich: The three layers (top, batting, backing) of a quilt layered together.

Robotics: Automated longarm quilting. Often called ‘computerized’ quilting.

SID: An acronym for Stitch-in-the-Ditch. Stitching in the seam lines of the quilt blocks.

Learn more about APQS longarm quilting machines at APQS.com.