Overhaulin'

Mike has decided to take it upon himself to overhaul the quilting machine that we are now the proud owners of (thanks to some family members, and a very generous credit union). It hasn't officially been serviced for about 6 years. Yes, there has been maintenance and upkeep that we've all done on it, but it hasn't actually been to see a technician. Mike has been doing a lot of research on how to service it, in the hopes that he can fix most of the issues.

Today, we went up to Draper to the Rocky Mountain Electric Quilters place. They sell and service Gammill quilting machines, and also sell parts, instruction manuals/dvds, and patterns. I had so much fun in that store! I even touched the Gammill Optimum with Statler Stitcher. That's like a $30,000 piece of equipment! It was cool, but I kind of feel like using the Statler would be like cheating. I am totally about free-handing it. Although, I would like to try using the laser and a pantograph sometime. Of course, only on one of my own quilts where I don't care if it gets messed up the first try or not.

They have a service technician, who is apparently pretty fast at most repairs. The lady said he can usually have it done in a couple of hours, unless it's something really tricky. We are going to make an appointment with him in a few weeks so that we can get our regulated stitch fixed.

While we were at the shop, Mike and I bought new handles for both sides, and all new buttons. Oooh! It feels so nice to have new handles instead of worn out ones. It definitely makes a difference. We also bought a few other parts that Mike will install tomorrow while I am checking on my flowers.

The flowers for my cousin's wedding came today, and they look beautiful! The lilies were the perfect color. However, they weren't very open. Maybe only 5 blooms were open. I need more than 5 blooms open for Monday, so I left them out of the color this evening. I'm going to check on them tomorrow. Hopefully they will be mostly open, and the rest will open in the cooler Sunday night and be ready for Monday.

I probably won't be blogging over the next few days, what with preparation for Melissa's wedding, but I will definitely have some fun pictures to post after the wedding! It will be a fun post, with lots of fun things (hopefully!).