Adventures in Longarm Quilting

Oh my goodness.  I am SO excited!  For the past 6 years (ever since I found out there was such a wondrous thing), I've been obsessing over longarm quilting machines.  For awhile, I made do with a "hobby" frame system, a 10' Grace quilting frame with a mid-arm Pfaff set on it for quilting.  I found that I love the Pfaff sewing machine - the frame, not so much.

My old quilting frame.

After trying out a few different models at a local quilt show, I set my sights on a Gammill.   Every 3 months or so, I would go on an all night binge of searching the web for a used longarm in my part of the world.  After flirting with a couple of machines, I have finally found the one for me!  A Gammill Classic with a 14' long table and no stitch regulator.  She absolutely purred when her former owner let me play on her for the afternoon.  (Thanks, Carol!)  Ah, love.

Introducing my new baby!

She sews such nice curves.

Moving it was quite an ordeal, mostly due to the fact that I had to drive a 20' U-Haul across California.  Dis-assembling and re-assembling the behemoth wasn't too hard, unless I put it together completely backwards, which is possible.

As you can see, I no longer have a living room that can be "lived in" by anyone other than me and my new baby.  And, like many new parent/child relationships, we're having a few issues. So, for the near future, I will probably be a little more stressed out than usual, and I'll probably be tearing my hair out just a little bit...but I'm confident that we'll be purring along again soon!

Doodles and the quest for the perfect circle.

12 comments:

  1. How exciting! Congratulations on the new member of the family!

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  2. Wow..congrats. Have fun.

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  3. Thank you! I'm not exactly sure how the other members of my family feel about the new addition, but I'm happy to have her here!

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  4. I have a couple of quilts you can practice on. Just need to get the backs ready. Seriously.

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  5. This is SO exciting!!!!!!! Please e-mail me if you have any issues that you need help with. Gammills are WONDERFUL but they can be picky at times. You are already doing fantastic work!!!! Yay!!yay!!! Congrats!

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  6. Lucky You! Those doodles are lovely!

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  7. perfect circles are so over-rated. Enjoy getting to know her and have fun!

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  8. Wowsers!!! Congratulations on the new addition. I love the "sewing lounge". Living rooms are so overrated. : P

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  9. Wow, that's quite an addition you have there! Congrats!!

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  10. Congratulations!! Very cool. I am fascinated by longarm too. Can't wait to see how it all goes and hear more about it!

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  11. That machine looks SO COOL! Totally worth the wait :)

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  12. oh thats awesome!, i too have the longarm dream.......one day!

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