I have always been the crafty sort. I used to look at handmade quilts in awe, as nobody in my family quilted let alone knew how to sew. As a young mother I decided I was going to try to make a quilt. I bought tons of fabrics and used a 1957 singer machine that I was loaned. Well the quilt got finished, it wasn't super pretty and certainly wasn't straight. I gave up after that and put that idea in the closet for 6 years. When my youngest was born I was doing books for a auto repair shop, and the mother in law made a Sun Bonnet Sue quilt for the daughter of the auto shop owners. It prompted me to take my first class. Oh my, the technology was changing so quickly. NO more scissors, but rotary cutters and straight edge cutting rulers! I became a prolific top maker, and branched out into bags, totes and whatever I decided I had to try. The quilt tops stacked up, and I wasn't able to afford sending everything off to the quilter SO I upgraded my old machine to a Juki straight stitch, and away I went. In 2013 a dear friend of mine, the local quilt shop owner GAVE me her longarm machine a Handiquilter HQ16. It came with a folding table and portable frame. Needles to say, the machine was named bad boy Billy and was persnickety and required uch patience on my part since the tension had to be just so or it would break the thread, needle and throw itself out of timing *SIGH*
Then in the spring of 2014 Susan helped my upgrade top a better table and track system and a I fell in love with machine quilting. In August of 2014 I decided I had sadly outgrown Billy, and upgraded to William (he's a gentleman), the HQ Avante, an 18" longarm. I do not have any computerized software that does the quilting, all my work is hand guided. I am not a robot or a machine and my quilting has really taken a turn towards custom work. I love what I do and will do quilting work for others.