I have the opportunity to purchase a "barely used" Pfaff Grand Quilter and Inspira Frame. I don't really know anything about these "frames" and have been told I am getting a good deal at $2900 Canadian. It has the cruise control, lazer light, pantographs.

If any of you have one or know of someone who does it would be great to hear what they think of them and the pros and cons. Any thoughts would be welcome.

I'm quite excited about this but don't know if I would be doing the right thing in buying it or not.

I just recently purchased a 2 year old Pfaff Grand Quilter and the earlier Next Generation freme. Paid $1,500 US. New, the setup sells for approx. $3,200 US. That includes the cruise control, laser, pantos, etc. I've only done a small amount of practice with it and it seems to work fine. Nice even stitches and glides along smoothly. My frame can be set up either crib size (6 foot) or king size (10 foot). The biggest drawback is the small throat (9 inches), limiting the amount of quilting space.

I don't know if that is a good price or not. I saw a setup like this demo'd in a store and it looked great. However, the biggest drawback to the Grand Quilter is its harp size. Isn't it only 9 inches? That limits the design area you have available once a quilt is rolled up. The roll takes up valuable space under the arm (harp size). If you have a large quilt that has rolled up enough to take 6 inches of that space, you have only a very small area left for quilting your design.

IMO, it would be a great starter setup (I wouldn't mind having it!). However, most quilters soon tire of the small harp size and want to go to something bigger. Midarms start at a 13-inch harp size, and regular longarms start at 17 inches, I think.

To get additional information, you may want to join the homequiltingsystems group at http://groups.yahoo.com . Check their files before posting; they have a lot of information about different quilting setups.

I would check around with pricing, though they have gone up since I bought my origional set up, I had the pfaff grand quilter and a grace frame and paid not much more than that for it and it included the stitch regulator, lazer pointer and pantographs. Though the store went into "retirement" since then. It did a good job and definitely easier than trying to muscle the bigger quilts through. It was frustrating after the first few quilts that I wanted a bigger machine. Hense when I was looking at replacements when I lost the other one, I went to the hq sixteen. I have not had a lot of time on it yet but it was a better set up all the way around, of course the price tag was a lot higher as well.

Thanks for all the great information everyone. I was wondering about the throat space on that one. I do have a Husqvarna Mega quilter which has the 13" space and I'm now wondering if I should be looking for a frame, etc. to use with that one.

I appreciate all of your input!

most of the domestic tables that I have seen are universal. The machine just sits on a platform and can adjust to almost any machine. And since the machine is the most expensive part, you luck in if you already have a machine.

Thanks, I think I will check out the price of the frames then.

I have the inspira and the grand quilter and love both. You are limited to the space you can quilt but I have done over 100 quilts on mine and will be doing many more. I got mine from a friend that paid 5500.00 cdn new and she sold it to me for 2,000.00 and it had only had 2 quilts done on it and it was only 4 months old but the condition is that I do her quilts for free. (Turned out to be an awesome deal because she is not much of a quilter.) I'm sure that you will love it if you get it but if you are planning to upgrade to a machine with a larger throat, this frame will not be of much good to you. And there are some really nice continuous line patterns to use with it. Good luck.

My friend has the Pfaff Grand Quilter machine and absolutely loves it for quilting. She does not have the frame. She has brought the machine to classes before and I have to say that it is the loudest machine I've heard - so loud that no one can have a conversation around her when it's running. I don't have a LA or that particular machine, so I can't speak for the price.