Long arm quilting is the process by which a longarm sewing machine is used to sew together a quilt top, quilt batting and quilt backing into a finished quilt. The longarm sewing machine typically ranges from 10 to 14 feet in length (or, 3metres to 4.25 metres). One typically consists of an industrial sewing machine, a 10 to 14-foot table, and several rollers on which the fabric layers are placed.

Quilting using a longarm machine can take significantly less time than hand quilting or more traditional machine quilting. This time saving is a large factor in the gain in popularity of longarm quilting.