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APQS or Handiquilter


Crazyqltr

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I am going to be purchasing a longarm machine and have narrowed down my choices to two. The APQS Lenni & Handiquilter Avante. I am looking for opinions and feedback from those of you who may owned or have owned either of these machines. The price of both is pretty close with the Lenni being a little more expensive especially if I get the Bliss track. The Handi quilter seems to have a lot more bells & whistles with the built-in upper thread tension dial, basting mode, thread sensors etc. & better lighting. The Lenni is lighter. Stitch quality is good on both but I understand the handi quilter requires more frequent adjustments. Stitch quality and perfect tension is most important to me. The handi quilter dealer is local to me & the APQS is a 2.5 hour drive. On the APQS the choice of the 2 different bobbins is another consideration. What do most APQS owners like the L or M bobbin?

 

I would appreciate any feedback

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Personally, I vote for spend a little extra and go for the Lenni with Bliss.  I baste just fine with my stitch regulator turned off.  We have a built in upper thread tension as well.  I have thread breakage sensors, but don't use them, too annoying on my DSM.  If stitch quality and perfect tension are most important, that's what you're going to get with the Lenni.  With APQS you can cope with anything that might come up where you'd need the dealer.  I don't know about the Handi quilter.  How many adjustments that you make on the Handi Quilter will require the rep to do on your machine?  None on the Lenni.

 

Yes, I am biased as a rep for APQS.  Before I bought my first Millie in 2006, I test drove every machine out there along with my engineer-ed brain husband.  I would vote for "It's pretty!" while he said "This one is built well."  That's one of the reason I went with APQS.  I now drive a 2013 Millie, and upgraded only because as a rep I felt that it would be nice if the machine potential customers were test driving at least looked like the one that they were considering.  White, not sliver, same face plate, same handles etc.  If APQS hadn't improved the machines in 2013, I'd still have my 2006 girl.

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Hi,

I had a Handiquilter Avante for 5 years and put over 28 million stitches on it without any problems. I sold it and upgraded to a Mille in 2014.  My dealer for Handiquiter was less than an hour away as is an APQS dealer.  I chose to go with my Mille because I wanted a machine that could handle the quilting I do  and one that I could fix myself and not have to possibly ship it back to the factory when there is a major problem.  Service and support with APQS is excellent.  Regarding bobbins I have had M style in both machines, wind my own bobbins and adjust very little in my tension unless I change thread types, then a little tweaking works.  Either machine may be prefect for you but service from the factory is better with APQS than it was with Handiquilter for me.

 

Debi

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Crazy:  Buy the APQS.  Besides being outstanding machines, APQS customer support is simply the best.  You never need to worry about being left alone with an old model, or any type unresolvable problem.  The quality of the APQS build is also better.  Do yourself a favor, and buy a machine you'll still be happy using ten years from now.  Jim   

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