Originally Posted by Pearl56

I am a newbie to this site, and am in a quandry...I won AQS's Dream Studio Giveaway last month, which included a Gammill 18-8. It is going to be delivered to me soon, and after reading lots of posts and opinions, I'm not sure whether this is going to be something I'm going to really love and use. I love piecing but have never been fond of the machine quilting process and am a very SLOW hand quilter. Part of me says I'll probably love being able to load a quilt and work over the entire thing, but I am VERY intimidated by what I'm reading about maintenance and the sensitivity of longarms. The dealer who will be my service provider is several hundred miles away and that seems formidable. And when I talked to one of them yesterday and asked about getting training, he told me that because it's the brand new one with the smart pad, they don't know how to use them yet but will be getting some training soon and that I'll be able to have someone come teach me after their training. At this point, I guess I'll have them set it up and hopefully get more info on how to use it, and see how it goes. I don't know any quilters in my area that have longarms, so don't really have any kind of support group!