Janie Millard
My 2010 Butler County Fair 2nd place quilt, HQ 16 and Me

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My first experience with a Handi Quilter machine was at the home of a friend who owned one. She let me do a couple of quilts on it an I fell in love. I knew that it was out of our budget so I started looking for alternatives. I had seen ads for quilting frames that could utilize my standard sewing machine. I asked my husband (the computer person in our family) to look on the internet for different options. After several hours on the internet, he said to me that he did not think that I would ever be happy with that arrangement due to the small throat size of my machine. However, he stayed on the computer for quite a while longer and then started to make a phone call. I asked him who he was calling and much to my surprise he was calling the Handi Quilter dealer in Columbus, OH. The person who answered the phone was Jennifer McCann (2008 NQA Teacher of the Year), who my husband later called a smooth talking devil. After about 30 minutes and a number of questions, I heard my husband say “We will take it”. Needless to say my jaw dropped. About a week later Jennifer showed up with the machine, set it up and gave me my introductory lesson. That was over 2 years ago and I have been in heaven ever since. During this time I have used my HQ Sixteen to do a number of quilts for friends, relatives and charity. A recent event made my HQ Sixteen even more special. Our family lost a Nephew at only 50 years of age to cancer and of course all of the family mourned the loss. After returning from the funeral I thought there should be something I could do to help ease the pain for the immediate family. I discussed this with my sister who in turn talked to my Nephew's wife about sending his dress shirts and ties to me. A couple of weeks later I received 30 shirts and a large number of ties from which the fabric was used to make quilts. To make a long story short, in around three months I had made 9 quilts to give to his wife, 2 children, 1 grand child, 3 brothers, 1 sister and 1 for his parents. The Quilt label read "Love & Memories we Impart to Quilt the Fabric of the Heart". The family expressed to me the comfort they received from these quilts knowing that the fabric had been touched by their loved one, but I felt even more blessed to be able to make these quilts. Without my HQ Sixteen that would not have been possible.

I own the following HQ machines:


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