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- Hello, and thank you for joining me with this video,
"The ABCs of Longarm Machine Purchasing."
My name is Sue Kleinschmidt,
I am with the At the Heart of Quilting
Gammill dealership in Beloit, Wisconsin.
So today I'm gonna talk a little bit
about different things you need to think about
when getting ready to purchase a longarm.
So the first thing you wanna think about is actually
why are you going to buy the machine?
So is it gonna be a personal use?
Are you gonna let other people use it,
even if it's your personal use?
Are you thinking about part-time,
maybe doing part-time business and using it for yourself?
When you start looking at part-time business,
you want to be sure that you don't overload yourself,
kind of keep, keep a calendar and take in what you want.
And obviously you wanna learn the word no,
when other people are looking to give you more quilts
than you wanna take in.
So think about that.
If you're looking full-time,
the one thing with full-time is typically most of these
longarm owners have the longarm in their house.
So the one thing you wanna consider when you are working
with the machine in your home is keeping a calendar
and considering, it is in your home.
So to try to separate your longarm quilting area
from your personal life.
And remember that you'll have lots of other obligations
and stuff going on.
So do keep in mind that it is a business.
So you wanna make sure you set aside that time,
whether it's 9 o'clock to 2 o'clock every day
if you have kids, or if it's evenings,
if you have another job.
So definitely some things to think about when
you are deciding which machine you wanna purchase, as well.
A lot of times people who are just purchasing
a machine for a personal use,
they will buy a smaller machine, maybe not as expensive.
And so they can do quilting you know,
maybe four or five quilts a month.
If they're looking more business,
they're maybe doing four or five quilts a week.
So you wanna more industrial machine, a larger throat.
Those are different things to think about as you decide
what machine you want to purchase
for your longarm adventure.
So other factors that you might wanna take into consideration
is if you're looking at doing a full-time business,
kinda finding out who else is in the area,
who else has machines in the area,
what kind of backlogs they have
and kind of doing a little research
into other longarmers in the area.
So, and then what kind of service are they offering?
Are they offering just custom quilting?
Are they offering overall designs?
So you wanna make sure that you decide are you gonna do both?
Are you just looking at doing one or the other?
Kinda keep that in mind as you're doing research
with longarmers in the area.
Other things to kinda think about if you are going to do
a full-time business, as you're doing your research,
keep track of those receipts,
make sure that you do contact an accountant
so they can help get you started with your license, LLC,
your tax information, so that you're up and running
when the machine arrives to your house.
You can go online and find different business plans,
which is a great idea to do when you're doing your research
and your marketing, things like that.
Business plans will also help when you start to go look
for your financing.
So really the first thing you wanna do is make sure
that you can decide which route you're gonna go.
If it's personal, part-time, or full-time business,
and that will help you dictate which machine
that you wanna start looking at purchasing.
And then from there, you wanna invest a little bit,
do a little research in cost of machines,
and start researching what money resources you have.
So sometimes people will use their savings
or retirement account, that is one option.
Another option is a company we use
actually is American Financial Partners.
They actually are a great company to work with
because they already know what the longarm is all about.
And the nice thing is they use the longarm for collateral,
if you will, versus going to a bank
or savings loan company.
They will wanna do like a home equity loan
or something along those lines.
And then now you're using your home as collateral,
but do figure out what kinda machine you're looking for,
you wanna get, and then that will help decide
what kind of financing area that you'll need to go to.
So the other thing that you do wanna consider with money
is if you are going to be doing any kind of upgrades
to your house, whether it be electrical or taking down a wall
or drywalling or flooring, anything like that,
you want to kinda take that in consideration
for your bank loan.
Obviously like American Financial Partners won't,
they won't do just the loan on the property.
They won't actually do additional money
for redoing your home. [laughing]
So, but if you are looking at doing a bank loan,
then you can maybe take into consideration
that type of extras, if you will, business expenses.
So the next thing that you wanna take a look at
is researching and test driving machines.
And since the quilt shows for this year, 2020
are all pretty much canceled.
That's why we're here today with Madison Expo.
You wanna do some internet research.
There are a lot of different companies,
longarm companies out there.
Gammill has their main website
and they have a great website that includes information
on the machines.
You can actually do a complete selection of your machine
and what kind of options you want.
And it actually calculates out a complete invoice
of that machine.
So you can kinda do all of that background calculation
if you want off of their website.
The other thing that they have on their website
is some excellent educational videos
on the different machines that we have,
the hand-guided machine, it's the Statler quilting machine,
and an Elevate machine.
And there's educational videos on there,
as well as any kind of maintenance, technical videos
that all of our longarm quilters actually will learn
in class as well as on the videos themselves.
So do your research, that's Gammill's website.
We also have a website,
heartofquilting.com is our website.
And you can research information there as well
about Gammill optional equipment,
as well as the machines.
So if you're looking at other companies,
obviously you can do that research with those companies
as well on the internet.
There are a few books out there on longarm quilting
and getting started, The ABCs of Longarm Quilting .
And then you can actually purchase books
that will help you hand guide, freehand, and stuff like that.
So the other option that you have besides the research
over the internet is actually test driving a machine.
So depending on the company that you're looking at
and researching like our company,
we are doing one-on-one test drive,
if you will, the machines.
So you can set up a one-on-one appointment with us
and you can just give us a call and figure out a time
that works best for you.
And then you can come in and test drive the machines.
As many as you want, we have them all here,
which I'll be showing you a little bit later.
The other thing that you can do
is you can do a beginner rental class
and test drive the machines that way.
So you can come in and get a four hour class.
We'll show you how to use it, how to thread the machine,
how to pin on the fabric,
and then you can have allotted amount of time
to run an edge-to-edge or freehand with the machines.
That gives you the opportunity to come back
and rent with us and just get really comfortable
with the machine before you decide to purchase it.
And that's a great way
to kinda test drive the machines as well.
So with our dealership, like I said,
you can try out those machines.
When you start researching dealerships,
it's great to find out how long they've been around
or different things about their machines, their company.
Are they gonna deliver the machine to your home?
Are they going to do training with you?
I really feel that's a huge part of buying a longarm.
You just don't wanna get a boxed up longarm shipped to you
and you have to figure out
how to put it together and start using it.
That's kinda scary for some people.
And so we are gonna deliver it to your home,
we're going to set it up.
We're gonna give training to you in your home.
And you're gonna get two more additional days of training
in our shop.
A minimum of two more days, you can always come back
for a second set of two days.
So training is very essential for you to get up and running
with your business or just using your machine,
if you're gonna use it
as a personal longarm quilting machine.
Find out also from the dealer
what kind of warranty that machine has.
Some companies out there have a warranty
that's good for personal use,
but not necessarily for a business.
So those are key things to think about.
Gammill has a lifetime warranty on the casting,
as well as the shafts inside of the machine,
and then three years for every other aspect of the machine.
What kind of support, other support
besides Gammill's website and their educational videos?
They do have Facebook live classes that they do
with their educational teachers.
We have retreats all over the U.S.
and those are called Quilting with Confidence.
They also offer Facebook groups that you can attend
and ask questions.
And it's great because if you're quilting
at 2 o'clock in the morning and you're out there
and you're stuck on something,
or you know how to handle something when you're quilting,
you can always throw that question out there.
And because we have Gammill owners all over the world,
someone might be awake and be able to help you out.
So that's a great resource as well.
Specific questions that you want to actually start
thinking about, or talk to your dealer.
What's gonna come included with the purchase of the machine?
So we give you everything that you need to get started,
minus your quilt apps, obviously.
So we don't have to add on an extra stitch regulator
or anything like that.
You're gonna get your stitch regulator.
If you're getting a Statler,
you're gonna get patterns to start, 1,200 to be exact.
So you'll get plenty of patterns
to get started with your Statler.
550 to get started with your Elevate.
So we're giving you that with--
And that's included in the purchase of the machine.
Different other features or different items
that will come with your machine,
your table, leaders, things like that.
Those are good questions to ask some of the smaller companies.
Smaller longarms don't necessarily have leaders.
Maybe you have to go out and buy poles.
So those are just some things to kinda ask,
what's all included in the purchase of the machine.
So what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna actually take you
around our classroom here.
And we're gonna take a look at the different size machines
and the different tables that we have.
So let's go ahead and get started.
So I'm gonna start with our first machine.
This is our 30-inch throat.
This is actually one of our most popular sizes.
And this one actually has a 30 inch between the needle
and the back of the machine here.
You can get this as a hand-guided machine,
an Elevate machine, and the Statler machine.
So I'll explain a little bit more of what those are
in just a little bit.
With this size machine,
you are gonna get a 12-foot table that you see here.
It's gonna come with standard.
It's gonna come with leaders,
and you can get additional costs,
you can get the zippered leaders if you would like to.
As you see right here is the zippers,
so there's that edge on that.
So you can take this quilt on and off
whenever you would like to,
but this is gonna be a standard 12-foot table.
Gammill does have the pickup bar that allows you
to raise that bar all the way across.
So that is a standard Gammill product as well
for the 30-inch throat.
So let's come on over here and I'll show you
the 22-inch throat and our 18-inch throat.
So here is our 22-inch throat.
And again, it's gonna be from the needle to the back.
This is a great size machine.
This is great for personal use or for your business.
And this one is actually set up
as a hand-guided machine right now.
So we have constant speed, regulated speed,
a coast regulated, and a basting option.
We have built in is our channel locks
for horizontal and vertical channel locks,
as well as a single stitch, needle position,
and a laser light.
And those are all included standard on the Vision 2.0.
So again, this 22-inch is gonna come, as well as the 30-inch,
will come with the 12-foot table standard.
We have our next table is our HomePro table.
This comes with a 10 or a 12-foot table,
and this is our 18-inch throat
that will come on this size table, okay?
We can get on a 18-inch, you can order it
with the Vision 2, which is again our stitch regulator,
or you can order it with the Elevates,
which is our computerized machine.
And I will show you that in a little bit.
Okay.
So we also have our 26-inch throat, which is over here.
Actually, we've got a few of them here.
So this is my mother-in-law's.
This is Kathy's machine, it's specially painted,
but this is a 26-inch throat.
Again, from the needle to the back, you've got a 26-inch.
This again is a very popular size machine.
The 30-inch and the 26-inch are very popular size machine
for doing business.
All right, so now I'd like to actually show you
just the Statler over there, a little bit about the Statler,
and then we'll go in and we'll see the Elevate.
So I'll walk on over here.
So this is our, this is the mother lode, if you will,
of our computerized system.
It allows you to do freehanding, edge-to-edge,
custom quilting, borders, and corners.
If you have some applique you don't want to stitch on,
we can trim out that stitching,
and that will allow us to stitch all around it,
except for on that applique.
We can design patterns on here if we want to,
we can draw out patterns.
We can take pictures of our quilt
and bring it in as an image.
There is really nothing that you really can't do
on this machine.
So this is kinda the top of the line for our computerized.
So let's go ahead into the other room and we'll go ahead
and take a look at our Elevate computerized system.
So we're in our front retail space area.
This is where we keep our Elevates so that we can do demos
and things like that.
So the Elevate is actually a hand-guided.
So it's the Vision 2.0 machine,
as well as a basic computerized system.
So we are able to do individual blocks,
we can do borders, and we can do edge-to-edge.
And so we can do all of that on here,
as well as your hand-guided and regulated,
just like the Vision 2 machines in the other room
that I was showing you.
This one happens to be on a 18-inch machine.
And the Elevate can actually be put on any size machine
that we have: the 30-inch, the 26-inch, the 22,
and of course the 18-inch.
So that's a little bit about different things
that you need to think about and research,
what kinda money you need to come up with
based on the purpose that you are looking at,
purchasing a longarm.
If you have any questions,
you can definitely give us a call.
Our toll-free number is 877-633-3537.
Again, that's 877-NEEDLES,
kinda shortened up, or you can just give us a call
or a e-mail at heartofquilting@gmail.com.
And we can answer any questions that you may have.
And again, we are happy to give you a demo
or if you'd like to come and rent the machines,
just again, just get in touch with us,
and we can set that up for you.
I wanna thank you for joining me today.
And again, I'm Sue Kleinschmidt with At the Heart of Quilting.
Happy quilting.
Thanks.
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