Quilts (120) are made from unquilted comforter bags (206) without premounting the panel on a rectangular frame (11,11a). A leading edge clamp (50,250) is preattached along the leading edge of a panel and fed from an operator station (15) onto a shuttle (20) movably mounted on the frame of a programmed single needle quilting machine (10,10a). Opposed belt conveyors (61,62) on opposite sides of the shuttle (20) advance the clamp (50,250) and pull the panel onto the shuttle (20), gripping the side edges of the panel as it is pulled. A trailing edge clamp bar (48) frictionally engages the panel as the panel is pulled onto the shuttle (20). The shuttle (20) reciprocates longitudinally under a sewing head (18) that moves transversely on the frame (11,11a) to stitch a pattern in the panel. A pickup head (86) engages the clamp (50,250) on the shuttle (20) and moves it to an outfeed table (81,281) at the top of the frame where the clamp (50,250) releases the quilted panel (120), folded once, onto the table (81,281) from which it conveyed to a stacker (200) by belt conveyors (82) or a moveable conveyor table (283). Preferably, the quilted panels (120) are conveyed to an elevator platform (302) at the operator station (15) that lowers a stack (320) of quilts (120) onto a cart (204) on which the unquilted panels (206) were supplied. When a quilted panel (120) is free of the shuttle (20), another front edge clamp (50,250) is clamped to the next panel to similarly pull it onto the shuttle (20). When a clamp (50,250) has released a quilted panel (120) at the outfeed table (81,281), it is returned by the pickup head (86) to the operator station (15) where it is released for reuse.