In the June 2009 issue of McCalls Quilting there is an advertisement by Bailey's Home Quilting Machine Co. The machine advertised is called a long-arm machine. It has a 13" throat and appears to be used with the Grace quilting frame or used sittling on a table. Their web site shows a price under $1,600.00 which seems more reasonable than the George machine which has been advertised for aroung $7,000.00. Does anyone know anything about this machine??????

HI...I don't know about this machine so much, but they do have a yahoo group for it, plus if you go to their website, you can find out more. http://www.baileyssewingcenter.com/homequilter.html HTH

Yes, I did visit their web site, but it would be much better for actual users to tell about the machine -- how it works --- how well the company stands behind the warranty, etc. The price seems more economical than others and the web site did state that Baileys had utilized normal machine parts and then developed additional parts to create the 13" throat. I am wondering if other companies like Singer, Paff, Brother, etc are not in the process of doing the same.

I have heard good things about this machine and it seems Baileys stands behind their machines. I hope to have one someday.

I have the Bailey 13" Home Quilting Machine on a GMQ Pro frame.

I have had it over a year and am happy with it. I, too, could not afford a long arm and wanting to be able to finish my quilts myself, decided to go the route of the Mid-Arm.

I have noticed that anything that is longer than a 9" arm, is now being called a Long arm. I prefer to call this a mid-arm since it is not a REAL long arm and does not do all the things a Long-arm would do.

Bailey also makes a 15" mid-arm machine. I chose the 13" because of my age and the amount of money I had to spend. It has done the job that I wanted to get done.

June

Thanks for the reply and info. Can the machine be used sitting on a table for free motion quilting???

I have the Bailey 15" on the GMQ Pro frame. love them both. I'm having a thread breakage issue right now, it only wants to use the Dual Duty spool that he sends with it and I refuse to use that on all my quilts! I'm just a bit stuborn :roll: I think it's mostly the operator :oops: . Mr. Bailey is great at customer service. Mine has a speed regulator, it's like cruise control, it just keeps the motor at a constant speed so all you have to worry about is moving it at the right pace to get uniform stitches. The carrige that comes with it has a place to put the foot pedal and operate it with your hand if you want to go that way, I upgraded to a lightweight aluminum carriage and there is no place to use the pedal so for basting I have to just hold it in my hand. I don't think it would work well on a table for free motion because it's small, like a free arm, no place to put your hands and move the quilt around. I think it's the perfect "starter" longarm. In a year or so I hope to get one with more bells and whistles but for now I'm happy with this one. I have learned to follow pantographs pretty well but I'm not very good at freehand stuff. YET!

Do you like this better. I have the Bailey 15" with the Little Gracie II. I'm not really fond of the carriage. It surrounds the machine too much. For a smaller machine it would be okay, it worked fine with our Babylock Quilt Pro, but the Bailey is longer so it's harder to reach around.

did you have to modify the carriage to take the bailey? I have the original grace frame that first came out. Have never checked to see if the carriage need to be replaced?

Nana,

I've read good and bad about the Bailey. It just doesn't seem to be heavy duty enough for our usage. One thing about the Bailey is that price isn't with a frame, so you will also need to purchase one of those.

You do have an excellent dealer in Spring but they don't sell the Bailey. We are purchasing an Innova from them. The dealer principal is very supportive and offers an excellent training program when you purchase a machine from them. They sell the Voyager, TInLizzie, Nolting, and Innova. I recommend that you make an appointment and test drive a few machine to get a handle on what you like. They are also going to have a booth at the Kingwood Quilt Show this weekend. The nice thing about the Innova is that they are built in Spring (soon to be Conroe) and they are really great and knowledgeable about their machine and super responsive to user questions. It's part of what sold us on the machine. Excellent support from all parties involved.

http://www.quiltfrog.com/