Originally Posted by
Jkobler
I'm a newbie at shopping for a long arm. I won't pay $35k and I don't have room for a 12' table. I do, however, need a stand up machine that's in between. I cannot quilt trying to wiggle my fabric sandwich under my sewing machine. It just doesn't work for me. And I can't quilt sitting down. I need to be standing up and seeing what I'm doing. It seems every new person I send my quilts out to to be long armed disappoint me. I get it-it's the nature of the beast. It's a lot of work and time and they need to make money. My only solution is to quilt them myself. I love to quilt and yet when I finish my sandwich, it sits there because I just don't want to send it out to be quilted. Hence my dilemna. I need some type of quilting machine!
I'm going to take a class on the Gammill at my LQS shortly. I'm hoping that will help me begin my journey. I would love to hear your opinions and experiences with your long arms-regardless of the size. Is there such a thing as a 6 or even 8 foot table vs a 12 foot table? I have a wonderful sewing room that is 12 X 20 but it's crammed full! No room for a 12' table-perhaps 8' I could do. Thanks so much!!!
You can get smaller tables. You can also get good used machines. My first machine was an Innova 18". I paid $5000 for it. Ten years ago. I got it for the show price. (Houston quilt show) New. Then about a year ago I bought a Gammill on ebay for $5000. It had belonged to a guys mom who had passed away. It is almost the exact age of my Innova. I got the original bill of sale for the gammill. It has a 13 foot frame/table and my Innova has a 12 foot. You can look for a year on the internet but you should really try to go look at machines at dealerships. That way you can have an idea of what you want. Plus at a dealership you can test drive the machine. I didn't get to do that. The only machine I got to test drive was a Tinlizzie at a dealership. So I thought I wanted a Tinlizzie. But I DID shop on the internet and found the Innova. I liked the idea that I could call the owner of the factory any time I needed to and I would actually get someone on the phone who could walk me thru a fix. Then I bought the Gammill online from ebay. I thought I wanted it but my husband said I couldn't have it so I decided ok, I could get along without it. Then I begin to work up a mad cause he said I couldn't have it and I bought it any way. It is a really good machine and I could never have afforded a new Gammill. My daughter quilts on it so the money wasn't wasted. Some dealers sell more than one kind of longarm. I don't know where you live but Try to find a dealer like that and get them to help you pick a machine with a frame the size your room can handle. When I went to my class that came with the Innova, the dealer had 4 different brands of machines with different sizes of frames set up for us. Each of us had bought different machines and they had a set up for each of us just like what we had purchased. I bought my machine from Quilt Frog in Conroe, Texas. hope this helps. Oh, and I much prefer the Innova to the Gammill.