Thanks Mary - I'm heading to groups.yahoo.com right now.

I think you'll be sorely disappointed. I bought the Husky Mega Quilter and took it back, got my money back. I would wait for the 18". Once we get settled, I'm seriously thinking about the Bailey.

I have the HobbyQuilter by Nolting. It is now called the FunQuilter. It is a 17" throat. I have mine on the Hinterburg stretch frame (wood one that you don't want) I have no problems with mine. I don't have a stitch regulator on my machine, but I believe the FunQuilter comes with one. But the price might be out of your range. I don't know what a regulator would feel like using one so I don't miss it, but I am sure it would help out lots. I think my stitches are pretty even when I do a quilt freehand.

There is the Voyager17 machine also. When they first came out I was on a waiting list for one of them, but I got impatient and checked for a local dealer in the longarms. Local being 2 hours from me. That is how I ended up getting the HobbyQuilter. I read alot on here about people talking about the Bailey, but I am not familiar with that.

I really commend the women on here that can do their quilting on a home sewing machine. I don't think I could ever attempt to quilt a queen size quilt on one. (let alone a twin one!!) I only use my home sewing machine for the smaller things........potholders, placemats, tote bags..........things like that.

Good luck with whatever you choose. I am sure you will get lots of information from this board.

Barb

Check out the Juki Yahoo Group. I've heard them talking about "stretching" the Juki to a larger throat. I guess there is a company out there that does it. I think it was north of $1000 for the conversion.

I had the Juki TL98QE on a stretch Hinterberg frame. Got the stretch because I thought I would upgrade to the Voyager later. It lasted 6 months before I got annoyed with the lack of throat space. I did a Queen on it, but it was very frustrating, couldn't do a 6" block at once when it was all rolled up. The largest pantograph I could do was 4" maybe.

I made the jump to a 24" Prodigy longarm. Don't know how I did without it!

Also, check out Longarm University. www.longarmuniversity.com. They have a for sale section. There are used longarm as well as used home systems that might fit in your budget.

Good Luck!

Here is my 2 cents. Or what I done anyway.

I started looking a couple months ago for something. I started with about $3000 as a limit. I looked at the Juki/Grace combos. The frames I had it narrowed down to was the Pro and the D-Lite. D-lite fits up to a 17" throat, the Pro a 20". Both are wood. Then I desided that I do more 'big' quilts than little and would easily out grow the Juki.

The Bailey was the next that I looked at. I only had 2 concerns about it. 1-It does have the 15" throat length, but what's the height? I could never find what it was and the best I could tell from the pics its about 6". Quilts are in roll not flat so that would be a tight fit. 2-Support. Yes, I hear the guy who makes them is very helpful, but what happens when he is no longer there? I am in my 30s and can see quilting into my 90s (fingers crossed).

While doing research, I stumbled upon a used APQS Discovery. I ended up getting it for under $4000. It was a trade-in and refurbished. It does not have a stitch regulator. I found that it's very nice to have one but it's possible to have great quilts without it. It's all in how you learn to use your machine. At this point I wanted 'workhorse' not 'bells and whistles'. I only plan on quilting for myself. I've had Dizzy for just over a month and LOVE her very much. APQS is terrific on their support. It was suppose to be shipped, at a $350 cost to me, but I was willing to pick it up at the factory in Carroll, Iowa instead of shipping. When they found that I am so close to their Des Moines office, they brought it down from Carroll at no cost to me. Saving me time and money. The guy then came in on a Saturday (their closed) and met me to pick it up. While I was there, another woman from APQS was there working on a personal quilt, she showed me ALOT about it and we talked for over an hour. After getting it set-up at home, I had an issue with the lazer. I sent an email and had the answer to my problem within an hour. They also have a forum that I have found some good tips on. I am FOREVER an APQS customer!!!!