AprilG

I went to my very first Quilt Show Yesterday. My head is still swimming! It was GREAT. I won a door prize! It is a 6 1/2" square ruler. It is by Sullivan and is called "The Cutting Edge". It sharpens your rotary cutter as you use it. Has anyone tried ths yet. I hope that it won't really damage my blade. I'll try it on an old blade and see if it re-sharpens it.

The quilts were wonderful. So many colors and patterns. I was totally blown away.

I also got to try a Long Arm quilter by Handi Quilter. It was really easy to set up and use. My quilting line was not perfect (of course) but not bad either. The lady sells Handi Quilters and has a shop locally. She also has a class on the HQs and then rents a LA for $25.00 per hour. Is this a good price? The class is $150.00 for the manual LA and another $150.00 for the class on the computerized one. You must take the first before the second class. I'm really thinking that this will be the best way to get my quilts quilted. What's your opinons. I know you have them!

alikat110

Glad you enjoyed it....heading that way today!!!!!

thepolyparrot

How fun! Where is the shop located?

I would love to find a place that will rent time on a long-arm and teach me how to use it. I don't think $150 is out of line at all. How much is the hourly rental fee?

AprilG

The hourly rental fee is $25.00. I thought that was a pretty fair price. She did tell me that the Lap quilt she was showing would take about 8 hours as it was a pattern traced on the back of the quilt and then quilted from the back. I guess that takes longer. A Free hand of the same quilt would take about 4 to 6 hours for a newbie. That seems an awful lot for a small quilt when you put it like that.

KathyAire

I have three items in the show. Two of them have ribbons on them. Stupid ribbons, but ribbons, no less.

KathyAire

OOPS. Trigger happy, again.

I have three items in the show. Two of them have ribbons on them. Stupid ribbons, but ribbons, no less.

Dina

I do not have a long arm machine, but my sister does. Once she gets the quilt on the rollers, I think it takes her about three hours to quilt. She follows a stencil thingy though, and that may make a difference.

thepolyparrot

Yikes, that's just as expensive (or more so) than having the quilting done by someone else. At that price, you could pay someone to do some pretty nice quilting for day's worth of doing it yourself. ;)

I'd found a lady who was going to rent time to me in between her own work - would have worked out pretty well for both of us. $10 an hour and I figured I would spend two or three days a month there, so $160-240 a month for letting me use her machine on days when she wasn't using it. At $10/hr, I'd be paying the same as having someone else do the quilting, but at the low end, which I wouldn't mind so much. A newbie is going to be slower, tie up your machine for longer, etc.

But, she never got back to me and now I'm thinking maybe I just need to bite the bullet and get my own darn long arm. I don't have the budget and I don't really have the room, but jeepers, I could easily get financing and my heavy-stuff-moving angel would help me make room. At least that way, I could count on the machine being there whenever I was ready.

AprilG

Wow, I would love to have one of those but, money and room are my two major problems. Right now my sewing room and my computer room and my reading room are all in a 12' x 12' room. I barely have enough room to move around. Luckily my cutting table is an antique drop leaf dining table. It is a little short for cutting, but, I'm short so, it doesn't really matter. LOL

I could always finish out the garage or the shed like I keep threatening to do, but, that costs too.

Oh, well, I guess I'll just have to wait until I get al lot better at making quilts. Then I might be able to justify it.