Meet Minerva

I haven’t wanted a longarm quilting machine for my entire quilting career, but pretty near. Like most things, it was on my “some day, one day” list. When my husband and I got together, I mentioned it to him, and he’s always kept it on his mind. (He has a real knack for remembering things like that to make me feel special).

When I dove back into quilting earlier this year, I mentioned it again, but really again in my “some day, one day” mentality. We went to the APQS show in Lancaster in March a week after my surgery to test drive a few longarms, get some paperwork, start doing some research. With all my health issues that were ongoing at the time, I really wasn’t planning on making such a big purchase. My husband had a few other plans.

He told me if my cancer insurance policy paid out, we would go ahead and get a longarm. I was still in disbelief of everything that was happening – that I’d lost the babe, that I could develop cancer, that I was even lucky enough to have the cancer insurance policy in place – that it didn’t seem real. Truth be told, six months after the fact, everything still seems a bit unreal.

And of course, I got so ill from chemo I could barely make it out of bed some days. My husband, who had been thinking of switching jobs, was now a full time stay-at-home dad, taking care of me and Jimmy. Our only income had been that insurance payout. Even though we had the money in the bank, it didn’t seem prudent to spend such a big chunk of it on a longarm machine.

A few months passed, I’m recovering my health and officially started a quilt design business. My husband and I went to the Quilt Expo in Oaks, PA in September. I had a few recommendations of machines to try from a longarmer friend of mine. Again, I thought this was mostly research, and we’d put off the purchase for awhile.

But it just seemed like serendipity when we met Mike and Bonnie from Memory Lane Quilting – they’re the Nolting dealer for this part of the country. They were super knowledgable, super friendly, and truly a delight to work with. We didn’t make the purchase that day, we went home and talked about it, crunched a few numbers, and slept on it.

And now she’s here.

Meet Minerva, my Nolting Fun Quilter 23.

Mike and Bonnie did the delivery, set up, and training for me. Loading a quilt on the frame is nowhere near as scary as I thought it would be. Oiling is easy peasy. So far, everything is better than I could’ve dreamed.

Jimmy helped with the set up.

I’m looking forward to new adventures with Minerva!