She’s Home

Innova arrived yesterday–brought to her new home by the capable hands of Rob Engime of Olde City Quilts in Burlington, NJ, where Judy Engime held down their store while Rob traveled to me. It was a 12-hour trip for Rob.

It took many trips up the steep stairs for Rob to bring in all Innova’s parts. I helped with some of the lighter pieces, but, truthfully, Rob did most of the trips up the stairs. The first step was putting the base frame together.

The second step was to install the much-needed new light bar. I had great light in my quilt room back in Maine, but only one small ceiling light in the bonus room here.

Oh my heaven’s. It is perfect. Let there be light! There will be no need for secondary light sources with this light bar in place.

Next, the table pieces get inserted. Note that Innova’s front faces the wall quilts–and we put her on a slight angle so I will have plenty of room to walk around the machine, to load quilts, and to quilt from the front. Having the back facing the room is awesome because I can easily trim quilts on the machine’s back counter. Innova is in a permanent position now; I won’t have to move her.

Innova herself is now on her sliding platform, and the roll-up bars are in place.

After Rob left, I installed the overlay grid I use on the back counter for pantographs and slid the pantograph I want to use next in place. The grid allows me to mark on it with wet-erase markers. The scrappy backing I made 7 months ago, back in Maine, is now loaded.

And I spent late yesterday and into the evening setting up and basting the first quilt to be quilted on Innova in South Carolina. It is one of three final quilts of the Cotton+Steel project of these last two years–three if we count these last three quilts. Oh wait! there are the blocks I made back in Maine from the small squares leftover from other C+S projects that I pieced together while waiting for the house to sell.

Suffice it to say that this morning I’m feeling so happy. And I savoring all that I learned from Rob yesterday–which was a lot.

I love my Innova, and I’ll be eternally grateful to Rob and Judy Engime for packing up Innova back in Maine, storing her for me all winter, and bringing her to me here in South Carolina.

Today I’ll begin quilting this quilt, going slow to get acquainted with Innova again, and I will sew together the binding pieces as a break, and will, maybe, sew the last three Churn Dash blocks for the quilt on the design wall.

And, yes, I’ll break for a long walk with my music.