sewingpup

I started out with a Viking Mega Quilter and yep, nine inches is not much to work with especially as it went down to 4 inches by the time you reached the end of a large quilt and the original Inspira frame was very interesting to work with. As it was made of aluminum, it started to sag in the middle which made it even more interesting. It did teach me I wanted to learn how to longarm though. So, I started researching machines. I finally narrowed it down between an Innova and an APQS. Innova had just come out with their home longarm and there really wasn't anything used at the time. I ended up buying a "demo" APQS" Lucey which has a 26 inch neck (yep, way better than the 9 inch I had before) and I opted for a 12 foot frame and the bliss which makes it so easy to move the head on the frame as you go. Yep, can move her with one figure. I have had her for about 12 years and never had any problems with her other than user error. You can also do most of the repairs yourself with help from manual or a call to the service technicians in Carol Iowa where the machines are made. APQS usually does not have used machines for sale but on occasion they do as they have been around for quite a while. But, they do have a couple of "Demo" sales per year where they give a discount off on the machines that have been used for shows or showrooms. These demo machine usually come with the lifetime warranty as long as you own the machine. I have found Lucey to be fairly easy to keep happy with the regular cleaning and oiling. I have stitch regulation on it, needle up/down and a horizontal channel lock. I have used different threads on her just fine but being somewhat lazy, I have gotten a supply of Superior's SoFine so most of the time, I do not have to do any tension adjustments. I do not have robotics as I quilt mainly for myself and am basically a utility quilt maker and doing meandering type free motion is just fine for me. I had them set up my machine for me and a local dealer gave me two 4-hour lessons. Since then, I am fortunate enough to have a dealer for APQS open a shop in my area and have taken a couple of lessons from her. I think taking a class to be able to rent time on a shop's long arm is an excellent idea if you can do that as you learn if you even like quilting. Some people find they do not. Oh, I have kept track of the quilts I have I done on my set up and I think I have actually paid for my machine in the money I have saved from not having had to send my larger quilts out to be done by someone else.
Susananne, I see you live in Minnesota. If you make it up to the Duluth, Karen McTavish has her shop up here and it is wonderful place to visit. Much creativity happening.