Janet Cunningham

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My first completed quilt was for our teenage son. We had just re-painted his room and he had gotten a waterbed – this was in the 1980’s of course! A local fabric store advertised a “Quilt In A Day” class and I wanted to make him a quilt for his new grey-black-burgandy room. I was ready to quilt! My old sewing machine refused to sew well that day and I took my quilt top home and took it completely apart and re-sewed it. Even with sewing my quilt top twice, I had been bitten by the quilting bug and have been quilting ever since.

The lady who did my long-arm quilting charged a very reasonable fee, but I wanted my own machine. Alas, our modest home had no space for a long-arm quilting table. A couple of years ago, my husband and I decided our home was a little too “cozy” when everyone came home to visit and we moved to a larger home with a large family room (soon-to-be part sewing room!) in the basement. I began to seriously consider a long-arm quilting machine.

When the Original Sewing & Quilt Expo Show came to town, I went to visit the dealer for the machine I had chosen. I was disappointed. It was so expensive! And it seemed to be complicated to operate and to maintain. But there were more quilting machines to try at the show – all sizes and prices of machines. I tried them all. The last one I came to was the HandiQuilter. It was so easy to operate. The price was affordable. The demonstrator was very patient – even after the fourth time I came back to her booth. I re-visited the other mid-arm machine booths, but knew the HandiQuilter was the machine I wanted! I purchased it that day and have truly enjoyed quilting on it. I chose the right machine to fulfill my dream of quilting my own quilts!

I own the following HQ machines: