I've had my long arm machine since April and....
 

I'm feeling blessed today. Thank you to Marge and the others who helped walk me through the baby steps. Thank you to my husband who worked to hang dry wall in my quilting room.

I bought the Tin Lizzie 26" Ansley in April from a dealer 3 hours away from me. I found her at the Mid-Atlantic quilt festival!

I had a couple problems that I was able to figure out on my own. The machine was in Lizzie Stitch and darn if the machine didn't take off on it's own! LOL Too funny! I took a look at it, moved the machine to manual stitch and tried to duplicate the problem on my own. Voile! I found the problem. USER ERROR! I have the 12' table which is in 3 sections, and one of the sections was not level. No wonder the dang thing took off on me! I had a good laugh at that one. The other one almost drove me nuts until I figured it out. After I fixed that goof-up I was off and running.

Tech support helped me with an issue in the rear handles. A wire apparently had a short in it. I shipped the handles back and had them returned within 6 days!

I found out the tech support guys are actually the people who work on the assembly line! How cool is that? It helped me understand why it took a couple days to get back to me. I am very impressed with Tin Lizzie.

All in all, I highly recommend Tin Lizzie. It's a great machine!

Good for you!!

It is good to read this. I have just finished reading several threads where folks were discouraged in the learning of "long arming." I don't have a long arm, and probably never will, but it sounds like it takes a lot of practice!!

Dina

I was so nervous at first. Now that I've practiced some I see how silly it was to be nervous. My machine is a basic straight stitch machine on wheels! It's hard to screw it up, it sews through everything and just keeps going and going. The tension is perfect, on every thickness I've sewn. I need to knock on wood now, don't I? :D

I am thinking of getting the Ansley 26 with the 12' frame .Where did you get yours at? I live in TN.

I bought mine from Sew E-Z in Portsmouth, VA. The dealer there is wonderful! They're a married couple, Jim and Freida. I live near Raleigh, NC which is about 3 hrs drive from them. They have a Janome dealership, and were selling Tin Lizzies since Janome didn't have a long arm. Shortly after I bought my Tin Lizzie from them, Janome and Tin Lizzie got together. And Tin Lizzie is now making a long arm for Janome, putting the Janome name on the long arm. Sew E-Z now sells the Janome long arm machine.

You might have someone closer than Virginia though. If you do contact Sew E-Z, the Janome long arms are the Tin Lizzie Ansley machines.

I've had my Ansley since April and it works beautifully! The tension is always spot on. I found a yahoogroup of ladies who help each other out. It's the TinLizzielongarm group. There are quite a few other machines represented on this list, it's not just for Tin Lizzie. You can read the archives to see how great the people are!

Thank you so much for all the info. I found a shop in AL. about 1 1/2 hours from me.
I will be checking out the yahoo group.

I wish the manufacturers would put better owner manuals with their Long-Arm machines. I was quite frustrated when I first tried to use mine as well. Had no clue how to thread it, adjust the tension, etc. If not for the internet, I would have probably shipped it back. I'm far from an accomplished long-armer, but I can stipple the heck out of anything now!

I also discovered Project Linus and decided that this was a wonderful opportunity for me. Through donations, they put together pre-cut quilt kits and ask "blanketeers" to put them together and return them to be donated to children in crisis. Free projects for me to practice on, and the finished project goes to a very worthy charity. I've already completed 2 PL quilts and just picked up 3 more kits to make.