Edna Berry
Edna and her HQ 16

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Most of my life I have loved to sew and quilt. It started when I was about 5 years old and my grandmother gave me a pin cushion with a needle in it and told me if I lost my needle I could not sew. This was shortly after WWII had ended.
I made doll clothes and later dresses for me and my younger sisters. We always saved the scraps and took them to Grandma and she made quilts with our scraps. She was a widow and lived by herself and always had a quilting frame hanging from the ceiling. I guess I got my love of quilting from my Grandma Kious.
I had made several quilts that I quilted by hand, but in 2000 my hand started cramping while I was holding the needle to quilt. I had watched some quilting shows on TV using the long-arm machine and told my husband that I would like to have one "some day". I told him that I probably would never do enough quilting to ever pay for one and he said that was OK. We bought a long arm machine that year and I did some quilting for others. After 8 years I decided I would like to have a machine with a stitch regulator.
My sister and I went on vacation to Tennessee in August 2008 and I purchased a Handi Quilter 16 while I was gone. I called my husband and told him what I had done.
He had moved his income tax and accounting office from our house to a downtown building in June 2008. I was going daily to help in his accounting office. Part of his office had a partition, behind which 2 desks occupied, and I was thinking that after tax season I would put my HQ 16 there. He did not like that idea, so he talked to the building owner about leasing a space in the back of the building for my quilting machine. By the time I got to work the next day he had it worked out so that I was in the front of the building, he was in the middle part, and the owner was in the back of the building. We have since bought the building.
I quilted 2 signs that says "Berry's Quilting" and hung in the front and side windows, my only advertising. I did not know so many people were in need of someone to do quilting for them. Before I get one done someone else is bringing in one, two and even 10 at a time to be quilted. Now if I could only get my husband to use the HQ16 I would be set.

I own the following HQ machines: