Yarn or Fabric

I have had a Bailey Home Quilter 15" midarm on a frame for about a year now.... at my old house I was too cramped in my craft room to even think about it. I had begun to detest it since it took up 1/3 of my room... It just hurt my brain thinking about it and I was somewhat afraid of it.... yes. I admit it. I'm afraid of spiders and my Bailey...

Well.... one of my friends from my quilt guild bought a longarm recently and she pushed me to get started on my Bailey. We tried about 2 weeks ago but while adjusting the screw on the bobbin case, the screw flew out and has not been seen since. I ordered a new case and got it in last week.

Today Jen came over and we got my Bailey up and running. It took a bit of fidgeting to figure out how to thread it since the "manual" it comes with is just worthless and a joke. but after a bit I was quilting!!!
I don't have a stitch regulator and have been very worried that I would need one - nope! I actually have pretty even stitches already. I'm really tickled. Now I just need to practice

I have to take apart my frame and put it together right (long story, let's just say we have it rigged to work right now lol) and lower it about 3" so I don't get strain so quickly... but I do believe that I might keep this beast even if she is sucking up a huge chunk of my new craft room. At least now I'm not looking at her thinking she's a space hog. Now I am looking at her thinking that she ain't all that bad and I'm pretty good at it.

Mary L Booth

You will love the Bailey. I have one also. I quilted a quilt today.

Mary in TX

patimint

Yay, keep practicing. From what I can see, you are doing great. So glad you are using it, no sense having a quilter and not using it. Enjoy.

eastermarie

I know what you meant by being afraid of it. I'm still leary of the Avante, but I use it. FMQ scares me to death, but I would really love to be able to do the beautiful feathers that others do. I can SID, meander, and follow pattern boards or templates but not pantos. Enjoy your machine! Happy quilting to you!

Tartan

Hooray for you mastering the beast! Just think of all the storage space you are going to free up when you have all your UFO's quilted!

QuiltnNan

i long for a bailey [sigh]. so glad it is working so great for you
i think i see that your frame is a hinterberg? how long do you have it set up at? the longest i could make my hinterberg in my master bedroom is 9.5'. if you have a long setup, you might want to consider using shorter poles. i can easily quilt a queen on mine and even quilted a king [with some creativity] last year. that might help you with the amount of space it's hogging

Grandma Peg

Good for you, glad it's working out. We will all look forward to seeing a quilt quiltedy by you.

Yarn or Fabric

It is actually a Superquilter Proflex frame. It has 10' poles. My old craft room was pretty much 11' square so it was up against a wall. My new craft room is muuuuch larger and I can get behind and around it without any issues at all. I like the proflex frame but then I have nothing to compare it to.
I will say that I decided that if I don't fully take to it by the end of March that I was going to sell it and buy a sit down Janome Horizon. I really do love free motion quilting
I think once I get the hang of it, I'll be pretty happy. Sure I would have loved to buy a $6000 - $10,000 model but I just don't have that kind of cash. The Bailey is a workhorse with a pretty big following.
I do wish that they would do something with the manual though. It is downright sad. It took two of us to figure out how to assemble the bobbin assembly area and to thread it - and I have to say that I'm still not 100% sure if I have it threaded right but it's working after 3 or 4 hours of trying everything we could think of to get it to work.

annthreecats

Yay for you! Have fun. Conquer the Bailey and show her who's boss.

AUQuilter

So glad that you are using your Bailey! Keep posting pics for us to enjoy.