The subject line of the email read: “Longarm for sale!”

I panicked.

In a previous post, I wrote about Becky, “my” longarm quilter. I’d come to depend on her to finish my growing pile of quilts and now she was considering giving up the business, giving up the machine. She loved quilting, but had other interests that she wanted to pursue. She’d started a Master’s Degree program at Loyola and was considering becoming a chaplain. Her studies were enjoyable, but all-consuming and the quilt machine had sat idle for most of the fall.

I had always wanted to give longarm quilting a try, but once I watched Becky go through the process of buying a machine and learning to use it, I decided it wasn’t for me. 1) It was way too expensive. 2) It was way too complex. My serger gives me fits on a regular basis and there was no way I wanted to learn to maintain and care for a $17,000 machine. 3) It quickly became evident that actually making money in this business required a lot more than either Becky or I wanted to invest. As with quilts, no one could or would pay us enough for our work to make it worth the hours we’d spend geting it just right. And neither of us wanted to spend 5 days a week quilting other people’s quilts. 4) Becky was doing such a nice job on my quilts (and pricing them so reasonably for me) that I was quite happy to let her do the quilting for me.

So much so that when Becky announced her “retirement” from longarm quilting, I panicked! There was no way I was going to find someone who would quilt my quilts with such loving care as Becky. And though I could find equally talented quilters, I probably wouldn’t be able to afford them.

I asked Becky if I could at least try learning to use her machine before she sold it. When we finally got together for my first lesson, I was happy to learn that she’d pretty much decided to hang on to her machine (thanks to her generous husband who says she should keep it because she enjoys it so much.) And just a few days later, she decided to put her classes on hold for the time being while she re-evaluated the investment of time and money to this pursuit. Still, since I’d started learning to use the machine, I figured I’d better continue on.

I’ve had three lessons so far. During the first one, we spent over an hour just learning to put the backing, batting and top onto the machine. Then I learned to warm it up, thread it, and manage the controls. After all that, I did a little bit of basting and sewing practice. The second lesson was spent practicing handling the machine. I spent the first half of the time playing with free-hand designs, getting comfortable with the machine. Then I switched sides, to the “back” of the machine to learn to use a pantograph. This involves following a paper pattern with a laser light while the machine sews the design onto your quilt about 2 feet away from where you are standing at the controls. I did a few rows of large scottie dogs and was quite happy with the results. If you click here, you should get a short clip of what it looks like in action.

This is the result:

 

 

 

 

 

 

My third lesson involved a bit more pantograph practice and then putting my first quilt on the machine and beginning to actually quilt a quilt. (My Christie Too quilt is getting five double rows of scottie dogs quilted horizontally across the entire quilt top.) I did two of the three double rows, so I have about 1/3 of the quilt finished already. When I go back later this week for my fourth session, I should be able to finish the quilt. It isn’t going to have the fancy small dog bones on the first border or the miniature scottie dogs on the outside border like the first Christie quilt that Becky did, but it is going to be good enough for a first try.

 

 

 

 

 

And I am now (becoming) a longarm quilter. Voila!

P.S. I finished the Christie Too quilt today, my very first longarm project. I’m already putting the binding on, enjoying the finished project. Woo Hoo!