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I just wanted to send a big thank you to everyone on this forum who takes the time to post answers to questions. I'm guilty of not posting very often. When I'm having issues with my Millie I know I can search this forum and get great answers. I send out a challenge to everyone to try and post once a week and get our forum content back to where it used to be. Anyone else accept the challenge?

My most recent pieced quilt and quilted on my Millenium. I used IQ and panto Earth wind & fire(I think?) by Darlene Epp. Pattern is by Kathy Doughty.

My new quilter arrived two Thursdays ago. My first quilt was a cheater quilt that I used one of the Pantographs that came with my New to Me Lenni. The second quilt is a panel quilt that I used up some of my leftovers on to make it longer and wider. So far Lenni and I are having a great time. The Panel quilt is mostly free motion. I tried the ruler table and ruler for a minute but I wasn't comfortable so went back to just echoing seams. Thanks for looking, Susan

To teach a class on overall designs, I used length of good white fabric as the backer (about 1 1/2 yards), some poly batting to show off the quilting, and a pale pastel batik on the top. I used my channel locks to divide an area and filled each with a different overall design. I used lots of different thread types, weights, and colors for options, both top and bobbin. Now I had a sampler of my personal stitching, what threads looked like on white and colored fabric, how colored thread looks when used in the bobbin, how density affects the feel of the quilt, etc. It was fun to make and when I suggest "something leafy" or "maybe geometric" I hang it up for my customer to look at. For the leafy meander, I showed many kinds and shapes of leaves. And sometimes changed the pattern to another similar one within the area.

I use the book-ring and plastic sleeve method. I primarily use pantographs, so I pull the thumbnail image from the seller's website, enlarge it to fit on a regular piece of copy paper, put it in a sleeve protector, and voila. The rings work better than a binder, because I can easily "audition" the printed sample on the quilt top to see if it seems suitable.

Thank you .. I quilted around it .. I know they are industrial strength.. but. not sure it would have looked at smooth as I would have wanted it to look.. it turned out like I wanted and I used the hard plastic lettered shirt as a tote to. carry it in .

Hello Dbams, Thank you for your kindness in letting me know. Have a great week!

This machine has been sold. Thank you for all that were interested!

I agree with Gail, $25/$30 per t-shirt as a minimum. Size of the blocks will depend on the writing/pictures on the shirt. 12-14 inch is a good size to work with.

$25/$30 per t-shirt will generally cover your costs.

It depends on what you want it for. I don't use it for my bookkeeping, and I gave up on using it for invoicing as it just didn't allow me to tweak the invoices the way I wanted. But I love it as a database to keep track of all my customers, their quilts, my threads and designs etc. I find it easier to use than making up my own spreadsheet and would purchase it again.

Quickbooks. It takes some work to set up the inventory items, but will make your life much easier at tax time.

APQS made a batting bar for the older tables at one time but I no longer see it as an available item. I thought this forum members PVC idea was great. It looks easy to make, thrifty and moveable. The bars attached to your frame can be tricky to load bolts of batting on it. You can go to the forum search and put in "batting bar", you will see many ideas.

That's your thread cutter. You have an activation button that will make the flat metal finger pivot and pull the bobbin thread between the blades to cut your bobbin thread, as long as the needle is up. You need a base extender made for one with a thread cutter, so your dealer gave you bad information and perhaps can remedy it for you. All Millies of your vintage have the cutters, so I wonder where the mix-up happened. The thread cutter can be removed and your base installed, if you think you won't use it. I use mine a bit and also can do SID without my base installed because the extra area on the left supports the template enough to get by. Search online or on this forum for the steps to remove the cutter. Edited to add---blow out under the plastic cover of the cutter to get the big ball of fuzz from between the blades.

What year was it made? The serial number is inside the harp and will tell the date of manufacture. If there is a letter at the beginning of the #, the machine has been worked on after the sale by APQS. Is she the original owner? Millies depreciate about $1000 per year. Does she have any service records? Has she ever re-timed or replaced the bobbin assembly? I'd be more concerned about "only doing 4 quilts" than some heavy use. Sitting idle for potentially years doesn't do the innards a lot of good. Since this is maybe 10 years old, take off the left side and see if it's gunked up from old oil and that the rocker assembly has no rust and works as it should---it runs the hopping foot. Check that the wicks are saturated with oil. Leave off the left panel and run the machine. How does it sound? Test-stitch, using different stitch-lengths in SR and different speeds in manual. Make a circle and inspect the stitches. Check that the wheels are good by pushing in all directions and seeing if there are clunks from flat spots, which can happen when it sits un-used for a long time. Eyeball the rollers from the ends to see if they're straight. Make sure the advance works. If you can, check the fuse drawer and see if there's still an extra fuse in there---it's in a pop-out panel near the power switch at the back. If it's there, that will mean she probably hasn't blown a fuse. Which isn't a big deal, but will tell you if she really only quilted a few times on it. Finding a few issues means you have wiggle-room to negotiate a price---but nothing mentioned here actually hurts the machine. Plus, she will think you're an expert! These heavy-duty workhorses last for decades and are easy to repair---my 2004 Millie is a trooper and helps me finish many custom quilts per year. Best advice, find a local dealer/rep and pay them to inspect it for you. If you buy, they will be a valuable contact for help and lessons. Good luck!

I would give that one back. I prefer working with t-shirts that are 100% cotton and using a woven stabilizer. I have found that the dry fit t-shirts don't work very well either. As stated by InezR, sew slowly over the designs. I like t-shirt quilts that have a little fabric around the blocks, not just blocks of t-shirts to add contrast and interest. A friend of mine used a "water" fabric as the base for her daughters water skiing t-shirts. Adorable! Here's one of mine:

Watch out for the sticky lettering on some of the shirts. They would gum my needle and then I'd throw the needle away. But, Barb Mayfield said she just cleans hers in alcohol and reuses it. I have better success with a 4.5 needle with my Millenium.