Yesterday was an exciting day!  Our whole family watched with interest as two gentlemen installed a longarm quilting machine in my home studio.  Now this is not a gift to myself; it is a serious business investment.  But still, it's pretty exciting!  I can hardly believe we did it!  

They arrived at 9 am pulling a trailer containing an assortment of boxes and items.  Yes, that's batting!  We're including batting with our machine quilting services, so we're going to need a lot of batting rolls (we hope!).  

The assembly took a little more than two hours.  I was planning to take pictures, but Liam had a better suggestion - a time lapse video.  Here's the set up of a longarm sewing machine, in 1 minute:

Pretty incredible!  Our Gammill Statler is mounted to a 12 foot table, so we can accommodate large king quilts and is fitted with a 30" machine head.  After assembly, the dealer and technician tested the machine to make sure all was well.  

Brandon and I haven't tried it yet.  But, tonight we're heading to Virginia for two days of basic training.  When we get back, we'll be eager to practice on the charity quilts that we've been collecting.  

I'm so looking forward to working together with Brandon on our quilting services.  During the installation, it was great to have him there.  He always understands mechanical and electronic tools in a way I don't.  The parts I find intimidating are the easy things for him.  And, of course, I have the familiarity with quilting and the customer's perspective.  We're both the kind of people that prefer to mind the details to do things correctly the first time.  I just feel like we're ideally suited to do this business together.  The timing is right and we're both motivated.  I feel lucky to have the chance!