I am so happy for you, great trade!!! I have a Nolting 14 on a metal grace frame, I hope to bond with her some day very soon. LOL I was not as lucky as you, so great you could trade, I love bartering!

Thanks everyone! Yes, I like the barter system. If I could manage to come up with the last machine I'm looking for, I'd gladly barter another bunch of machines out of my sewing room. Maybe I'd eventually be able to fit this frame in there. ;)

Well, we're bonding. After a couple of mis-starts, things are going well. I managed about an hour on it yesterday in a couple of small sessions. No pain so far, which is good.

My mis-starts:

• Top thread breaking - I've bonded with the threader now. I think my issue was the sandwich being either too high or too loose. I've tightened it, and it's -just- above the bed now and it doesn't break. It's also apparently 5 year old serger thread. I'll wind some bobbins with some newer higher quality thread and change to something else for the top thread before I start quilting today .
• needle fell out after I checked it - turns out this is one of the machines I -have- to tighten the needle with the screwdriver. It's also important to set it completely. It stopped, I tightened. Apparently it wasn't all the way up. I know now to stick my head down there, stick a fingernail under the needle and shove until I can see it's seated.
• presser foot down. Yes, for some reason, I almost never forget this, except on this machine, where I almost always forget it. I'm getting better, and I have a reminder on the handles for the time being.
• when the machine started breaking thread, I decided not to put off the service until the next day, and somehow put the machine into bobbin winding mode as I opened it, which locks the machine from revolving more than one revolution. That's not documented anywhere I looked. ;) I figured it out though, and I won't make that error again.

Yesterday I managed to do some basic stippling, some McTavishing and some general playing around. It will take a little getting used to for the slow tight stuff (I find the Quilter's Cruise Control behaves a little strangely here - longer stitches, etc. I couldn't find a troubleshooting document though for the QCC, so I assume this is normal behavior?) but I think as I get used to it, I will get a better result.

All in all, still happy with it. :)

Congratulations on your great trade; enjoy!

Tammi said: "He said that I wouldn't use it if it's in the basement. Of course not. There are spiders in the basement. I don't do spiders. "

How do you train them to stay in the basement?

Cathey

Clearly I'm not doing a very good job with that lately.... they've been moving up!
That said, the long arm that replaced that setup is in the basement and I haven't found a single spider on her yet.... *touches a LOT of wood*...

OH you lucky girl!
I use my Juki-TL98Q daily for hours at a time...just give her oil and keep lint out and she works like a dream...I use standard sewing machine oil with the long squirter. Standard needles, but I am experimenting with the new Schmetz Titanium needles and they really do last longer. I think I had this last one in the machine for over a week.

I don't have a frame...no room. But when I'm FM'ing I set my kitchen timer for 1 hour. It forces me to get up and get away from the machine...otherwise I'm a cripple the next day.

Move the rig kitty cornered so hubby has room to sit there and keep you company.

Looks great and I wish you lived next door to me. LOL Have a great time.

Congratulations on a great trade. Show us pictures of your quilting efforts. And don't do what I did--I was the proud and happy owner of a Gammill Classic for over a year before I even had the nerve to approach it. It seemed so BIG. But my son has me all trained on it now, and I can load (all three rollers, sometimes upside down, so do-overs) and quilt a quilt in a day if I stay at it all day long. I am glad that I don't have to do FMQ, one of my quilting lessons included lessons in FMQ, and I failed that part miserably. Too much scrunching, and wadding, and gathering on the back between pins......

That's definitely something I did was service that TL98 often and regularly. I really do like the titanium needles too. I think mine are Organ needles... the same as Superior Threads has.

Setting a timer is a great idea. I can go for a long time too but then I'm a write off as well the next day or even 2 sometimes! Neck shoulders and lower back. My saddle stool made a big difference to my endurance too. It seems to enforce better posture.

My next door neighbor hugged me when she found out that was in the house. By the time she brought a quilt to me though, that setup had been replaced. The proceeds from selling that setup though went toward the new machine.

FMQ is much harder than free motion on a frame. Jamie Wallen says the long arm is like a pencil and the quilt is the paper.

FMQ on a domestic is harder because we're used to moving the pencil, not a huge cumbersome king sized "paper".

That setup (This thread is almost 2 years old! :)) was replaced less than 6 months later with an APQS Lucey. This is what the Lucey corner of my studio (in the basement) looks like today plus a couple of finishes. This is the part of the studio I'm willing to show, the other side of this pic has 2 sewing machines in pieces getting some appearance treatments on my cutting table / bench! :)

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This is the whole cloth behind Lucey:

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A lap quilt for me: I put the borders on wrong, I always seem to with mitered borders, that's why it waves. Cuddle Minky on the back that shows the design.
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