My New Toy... Just Got To Learn How To Use It

On Friday I purchased (as an early birthday gift according to Bryan) a used short-arm quilting system. It includes a B-Line table top frame and a Juki TL-98E quilting machine. I am very excited about learning how to use it. My pie-in the sky dream is to own a long-arm quilting system, but since they run between $10,000 (used) up to $30,000 (new, computerized) I probably won't be getting one anytime soon. At least not until I get MUCH better at quilting. This system should be a good start.

We got it set up yesterday but its pretty big ( a little over 12' long and about 3' wide) so I'm going to have to do some rearranging in the guest room I have set up as a sewing room. It's a bit cramped with this frame, my old machine, a cutting table and a full-size bed. Something has to go.

Bryan is trying to figure out a better way to use the stylus, as it looks right now (not sure since I haven't actually used it) but if you sew from the front you won't be able to see the stylus, thus your pattern and I don't have room right now to sew from the back... I think on the B-Line they have templates that are actually cut-outs, that the stylus doesn't merely follow a pattern on paper but actually sits inside a groove and follows that... I think...

Here's a few pics of the system after we pieced it together.