I highly recommend the kwik klip. I love it. The back shouldn't be real tight. The pins should be 3 to 4 inches apart About the width of your hand. I roll my quilt up on both sides and secure them with quilt clamps. It's pretty much going to be a pain no matter what you do. Trying to work with a huge quilt on a machine is not fun. Have you looked into the quilt as you go. I am doing a king size this way in three sections and even with the quilt in three sections it can be a bear. My machine embroiders and I have done some baby quilts with quilt motifs on them and they look great so am looking for more quilt design and just going to let my embroidery machine do it for me since I can't afford a long arm. I have done free motion. sometimes I like it sometimes I don't. The smaller the quilt the better I am at it.