I have been quilting for over thirty years. I hadn’t realized it had been that long until someone asked. How time flies. I started out quilting by hand and my husband made me a beautiful red oak quilting frame. But it was taking to long to get quilts finished so I finally broke down and started quilting on my domestic sewing machine.
Talk about frustration!! I did manage to quilt king size quilts on my machine. Again, frustration.
I started going to shows and looking at quilting machines. I knew I wanted one with a computer and at the time that meant Statler, IntelliQuilter or CompuQuilter. Looking at just quilting machines, I couldn’t make up my mind as to which one I wanted. They all had good points and bad. The machines were also so big and industrial looking and there was no way I could fit one into my very nice quilting room. So I gave up. Decided I would continue fighting on my domestic machine. Of course that lasted until the next quilt I tried to quilt.
Then lo and behold, Handi Quilter came out with Pro-Stitcher. I took my husband to our local dealer for a demo. He was impressed with the machine. Engineers look at things differently than quilters and the HQ Sixteen passed the husband test. I loved the fact that you only have to oil the bobbin case. Compared to the others that have multiple oiling spots that you need to oil every couple of weeks. But I still had a space problem. No matter how I tried to lay out my quilting room, I couldn’t get everything into the room.
My husband also had a playroom. His room had a HO train layout set up in it. Well, one day I came home from work and he had dismantled his layout and started moving my quilting room into his HO room. He put in cabinets for my stash and built the table that my sewing machine sets on. He built laminated countertops for the cabinets too.
What happened to my old quilting room? Well we moved the exercise equipment into it from one of the spare bedrooms and that bedroom turned into his Photo studio. He lost a layout but gained a studio.
Now you would think that would be the end of the story, but no. In May, I went to Handi Quilter retreat. I had no intention of buying a Fusion (at this time) but I did.
My husband drove to Utah for the weekend and he took a tour of Handi Quilter. He was very impressed with the Fusion and said “You are going to get it eventually; you might as well do it now.” So, I did.
I came home and sold my HQ16 w/ Pro-Stitcher to the first person I asked if she was interested. The Fusion arrived and my husband had it setup within two days. I put some muslin on the machine to practice and after just fifteen minutes I went upstairs and told him, “This is a SWEET machine!” His comment…. I have never heard you use that description in 35 years.
Yes, I love my Fusion. And yes, when the Pro-Stitcher is ready for the Fusion, I will buy one.

I own the following HQ machine: HQ Fusion