Vicki Maynard
Me standing in front of my QOV at a display at a local museum.

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I have been sewing since I was 6 years old, so I have been sewing for 54 years. I started out making doll clothes, then clothes for myself, moved on to making clothes for my daughter and then my granddaughter. In October 1996, I made a trip to a local quilt shop to buy some fabric and came back with a new sewing machine and had signed up for a beginner's quilting class. I have been quilting ever since. But I had a big problem....... I would generally piece a top and then put it away unquilted because I didn't handquilt because of arthritis in my thumb and trying to quilt on a regular sewing machine was a real pain. All that tugging and pulling the quilt sandwich to end up with less than favorable results. Then came all the ads about longarm quilting machines. I read and read and researched each machine and decided the HQ Sixteen was a machine that had everything I needed for my longarm adventure. Not only because of it's reasonable price but because of the features it offered for that price. I chose a dealer about 25 miles from my home and placed my order, never telling my husband of my purchase. Fortunately, the day all those boxes arrived he was out of town so I didn't have to explain what they were. I managed to get everything down to my basement, sometimes opening an extra heavy box upstairs and taking the parts down one piece at a time. I got my HQ Sixteen frame together and machine on it before my husband got home and it was another week before he noticed it sitting there! Initially I quilted several of my previously pieced tops but I didn't use my HQ on a regular basis. Then in April of this year I got a phone call that completely changed my quilting life. The call was from a member of a local Quilts of Valor group and I attended my first meeting on April 5th, 2010 and formally became their longarm quilter. Since that first meeting I've quilted approximately 35 quilts and have pieced and quilted 5 or 6 on my own. I also pieced and quilted 2 quilts to raffle so we could raise money to buy more materials to make more quilts. We present our quilts to veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan and other wars as our way of thanking them for their service to our country. That first stitch into a top that wasn't mine was really scary but I've gone from a not so confident quilter who only quilted for herself to a fairly confident quilter who will now take on just about any top given to me. I love my trusty HQ. Having it has enabled me to do something with my quilting I never dreamed I could do by making it possible for me, in my own way, to give back to those military men and women who have sacrificed so much for their country. I am 100% sure I made the right choice when I picked the HQ Sixteen as my quilting machine.

I own the following HQ machines:


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