A Goal Realized

I've been thinking about getting a longarm for a couple of years now and have mentioned it once or twice on my blog. It was my intention to look at them some more at a couple of upcoming quilt shows this spring and then make a decision. Lately I've been thinking about something that JudyL wrote on her blog at the end of February about not being afraid to take a chance to achieve your goals. Well, none of us is getting any younger, including me; so when an opportunity presented itself recently to acquire a longarm, I seized it.

Today my Tin Lizzie 18 LS arrived, and here she is on the table in my sewing room. Tomorrow the second shipment, containing the frame and the rest of the accessories, is scheduled to arrive.

The machine head came out of the carton just as you see it, and I spent the rest of the afternoon attaching various components to the machine--handles, lamp, thread holders, and so on. Putting these pieces together felt a little like building an erector set, and I had some minor trouble with a couple of things, but nothing my husband couldn't fix when he got home. After we got everything put together, I was very tempted to plug it in and give her a test drive; but I have no idea if you can use these machines like a regular sewing machine where you move the fabric, so I decided to leave well enough alone.

Tuesday I am leaving on a bus trip for Lancaster, Pennsylvania for the Quilters Heritage Celebration quilt show. The trip was planned a year ago by a local quilt shop, and there are a dozen or so quilters I know who are also going; so we'll have a fabulous time. Tin Lizzie is supposed to have a booth at the show, so hopefully I'll have an opportunity to ask questions, and to purchase some thread, maybe a video or two, and a couple of pantographs.

I have some of the rows sewn together for the new quilt and have started working on the borders. There are 52 pieced blocks in the outer border, so I'll be busy with that all weekend. In an ideal world, I'd like to finish this quilt top before I go to Lancaster. I'll be starting the next quilt for my friend as soon as I come back. I've also been working on the binding on my Blooming Nine Patch, and I'd like to get that finished this weekend as well and post a photo of it.