Old 12-05-2011, 11:12 AM
  #6  
dunster
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Lake Elsinore, CA
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This might be the perfect machine for you, or it could be like throwing your money down the drain. It all depends on what you want and need, and at this point it sounds like you need to do more research and actually test drive several machines of different sizes and types. The main drawback is that the throat on this machine is only 15". Usually, when people say "longarm" they mean 18" or more, and 15" would be considered a shortarm. 15" looks like a lot at first, but as the quilt is rolled the space available for quilting will become smaller and smaller. Yet many people successfully quilt on a 15" and love it. Others are not satisfied until they get 26". To some extent it's a matter of how much money you are willing to spend, because bigger machines usually cost more. The best thing you could do would be to go to a big quilt show where the longarm companies are all displaying their machines. Test drive all of them. Here is an article that Renae Haddadin wrote about shopping for a longarm. To get the article you have to put it in your shopping basket, but it is free. http://www.quiltsonthecorner.com/inc/sdetail/1349. I may be biased, because I also bought the Innova, but I think there is a lot of useful information for anyone thinking about a longarm in the article.
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