My Beauty!

What do I have on my frame?

I promised a peek and here it is! This is the butterfly quilt for Alindsey, I am really liking how this quilt is turning out. I used Minkee for the backing and the butterfly quilting is showing beautifully!
While I was taking pictures last night I got to thinking that I don't have any pictures of my beautiful machine, I have pictures from the lady I purchased it from but none of my own. So I took the time to take some good pictures of my beauty. The Homesteader is not a very common machine so I am hoping this will be of interest.

I use my Beauty on a Suzy Q frame, with a Grace carriage, you can see in this picture where Stuart added a go switch for me to do Panto's with. You can also see the panto I am using for this quilt, it is a great pattern and super easy to stitch out.

Another front shot of the machine. The quilt roll is getting pretty large, but so far so not a problem given that this is a queen size quilt with minkee and I am almost at the end of the quilt I am not worried about running out of space.

A nice side shot of the head, the red box on the top is the speed control. When I teach I jokingly tell my students that the trick to quilting with out a regulator is simply much like the sleep number commercials... finding your stitch number I stitch at about a 6 to a 6.5 doing free motion and a pretty solid 5.5 when doing a panto.

Ok, just plain silly but I LOVE how pretty my machine is! Not only does it stitch like a dream, takes any thread I throw at it, but is looks good doing it!

The handle assembly, I will at sometime in the future be adding a set of removable micro handles, but that is some time way down the road. I am going to send my beauty back to the maker in January for a complete retrofit. This is a first generation machine and there have been some upgrades made since she rolled off the line, Jennifer had offered to bring my Beauty up to "new" for a very reasonable amount.

Almost done! Another side shot, you can see the handle for the carriage, I don't use the handle but we did run the thumb switch wire along it, plus it gives me a nice handle for doing pantos.

Last one! I totally and truly love my machine. If you are considering a smaller longarm machine, please consider looking at this machine, mine is a 19" machine, they also make a 22" and if computers are your thing, you can get the side saddle option.
Either way, for a home machine this meets my needs very well. The only reason I rent time on the machine in town is because of my frame limitations. I have a queen size frame and so I rent time when I have a king size to do.

More on that later... I will be finishing Stuarts quilt tomorrow.... stay tuned pictures to follow!
Happy quilting
Ginny