Tricia took another step toward the deep end of the pool with regard to her quilting hobby this weekend. She is now the proud owner of a Gammill Quilting System. She’s been looking at one of these babies with an envious eye for several years and then recently got the chance to get a slightly used model for a considerably reduced price.

There are two separate parts to quilting. First you cut out fabric and sew it together into a pattern. This is called “piecing.” Then in the second step the pieced top is layered onto a filling and a backing and sewn together in the process called “quilting.” Tricia pieces a lot of quilts. A few she quilts by hand but most get sent out for machine quilting. She pays someone to machine quilt each one, so potentially over the course of a few years she could recoup the price of the machine by doing it herself. On top of that she has friends and relatives who need quilting done also so it could eventually more than pay for itself. Besides the economic dimension she wants to control the entire process rather than rely on someone else.

Did I mention that it is over twelve feet long? Although it dismantles somewhat there is still a twelve by three foot table top. After some discussion ,we finally decided we could transport it in the pickup truck. We propped one end of it against the tailgate and let the other end project over the top of the cab and tied it down good. It stuck up about three feet over the cab but we didn’t have to pass under any low-lying bridges or anything and we only had a few miles to go.

The real question was how to get it in the house once we got it home. Tricia has her sewing studio set up upstairs in a spare bedroom, but getting it up the stairs was out of the question. The stairway is narrow and has a turn at the top. The only answer was to pass it through the upstairs window. That actually turned out to be easier than it sounds. It took two people down below to stand in the bed of the truck and lift one end up enough to rest on the windowsill and another inside to draw it through. Thanks to Mary and Treavor for the extra hands.

Another part of the price was giving up our spare bedroom. Tricia’s sewing room had a bed in one corner for guests but that had to go to make room. The third bedroom which is the smallest had already been confiscated by me for an office, or a “library” as I pretentiously call it. So now future guests will have to make do with blow-up air mattresses which we can keep in the closet or else make their own arrangements.