Congratulations to Sarah Rothwell on the purchase of my A-1 longarm quilting machine.  Sarah and her dad showed up with a flatbed all the way from Lubbock to pick up her new A-1 longarm.  I quickly showed her the ropes and she got to test drive it…fortunately she loved how it handled.   Jerry and I, and Sarah and her dad, Gary, began  the arduous process of disassembling it. About 3 hours later we had it down and loaded with lots and lots of bubble wrap and blankets.  Sarah owns a fabric store in Lubbock called RahRah’s Fabric and Quilting.  She plans to rent the machine to customers to do their own quilts.   I’m thrilled that this really nice young woman will be using my machine.  It has been a good one!

Now that the upstairs “sweat shop” is devoid of the longarm, we are having the carpet removed and replaced with a vinyl plank flooring that looks just like our hand-scraped  wood floors down stairs.

All of this is to make way for the new machine…the Bernina Q24!  ( I think “Q” stands for Queen of quilting).  Right now my new baby is sitting in the garage waiting.  Friday, the Bernina folks from Sew it Up in Grapevine, Linda Davis and her husband, will be coming out to set it up.  I can’t wait!

The hard part is that I’m leaving for a quilting retreat on Sunday in Wisconsin at the Madeline Island School of the Arts for Gwen Marston’s last retreat before retirement.  That was a stroke of luck as I got the last spot available in the retreat!  It will focus on “Small Studies”.  Gwen was doing “modern quilting” before anyone called it modern quilting.  I’m really looking forward to the retreat, but also anxious to get back and get acquainted with The Queen.  I have a couple of tops ready to quilt and have been waiting to do them. Stay tuned for more about the new Q24!