For reasons too stupid to explain, I own a 10-foot-long, 400-pound, $7,000 longarm quilting machine. No, I am not a quilter. I am not a quilter in the same way that I am not a giraffe. Which is to say: in every possible way.
Let’s just say I thought I could use a 400-pound $7,000 longarm quilting machine to do X for my business, where X has nothing to do with making quilts. But once the machine had arrived and been assembled with much personal exertion, then – surprise! – it couldn’t do X. It could quilt very nicely, yes indeed it could. But I needed it to do X. Which it was not designed to do. Did I mention that I am not a quilter?
And so the brand-new 400-pound $7,000 longarm quilting machine sat in my studio, mocking me. It whispered things at me like, “Mistakes were made,” and “Yes, your butt looks big in those pants.” Later, in my dreams, it raised its 17-inch sewing arm and waved its 360-degree free-motion needle at me, chanting “Seven thousand dollars of your investors’ money! Bwah-ha-ha!”
And so it became necessary to kill it.
Friends, who among us has not tried to dispose of a 400-pound $7,000 longarm quilting machine? Surely you know how difficult it is.
Here are the things I have tried, in chronological order:
- Selling it on Ebay for $5,000 plus shipping.
- Selling it on Ebay for $4,000 with free shipping.
- Auctioning it on Ebay for whatever the hell someone would pay.
- Pleading with the people who followed my Ebay auctions to tell me why they would not bid. I finally got an answer: my machine is an off-brand. Everybody wants a Gammill brand. Well, Gammill can go suck an egg.
- Returning it to the manufacturer. Their laughter still stings.
- Ignoring it for, oh, about a year and a half. It did not go away.
- Posting it for sale on every online quilting forum on this planet.
- Emailing influential longarm quilter ladies – yes, there are influential longarm quilter ladies, lots of them – to ask for advice. Said advice was fruitless.
- Placing ads in several quilting magazines and newsletters (I parted with my own legal tender! The machine is winning.)
- Printing glossy full-color advertising cards to pass around the annual Machine Quilters' Exposition, which happens to be held in my town. Last year I actually got three live people to come to my studio and look at the quilter. Surely one of them would work out! Wasn’t my optimism quaint?
- In desperation, donating it to the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts. They could run classes with it or auction it off or do whatever museums do with free 400-pound $7,000 longarm quilting machines. No dice.
- In desperation, donating it to the textiles program at the Rhode Island School of Design. Surely some of their students could use it to stylishly revolutionize something, somewhere. Nope.
When I moved out of my studio last year, my brother Jon helped me dismantle the quilter and pack it into two enormous wooden crates. The quilter, sensing trouble, bit Jon on the thumb, resulting in some bloodshed and bad karma (see documentary photo).
I told the Nice Young Man who was moving in to the studio after me that I would be rid of the two enormous crates in a short time, and could I just leave them in the studio for a bit? I was courageously lying, and because he is a Nice Young Man he believed me and agreed. I’ve seen him around town in the year since then, and he has become not quite so nice. The quilter will do that to you.
These days, my 10-foot-long, 400-pound, $7,000 longarm quilting machine is a sliver of nastiness in my brain. Since I have foisted it on the Nice Young Man I don’t have to look at it, but it does rear its needles in my mind sometimes. Then the regrets pile up: I never should have bought the damn thing. I never should have passed it off on the Nice Young Man. I never should have slept with that guy freshman year in college. And so on.
My brother has a plan. We rent a truck, drive the quilter up to Boston and take it on the ferry to Provincetown. Halfway through the ferry ride, we gracefully tip the 400-pound, $7,000 longarm quilting machine into the Cape Cod Bay. We arrive in Provincetown and have a celebratory drink.
Other ideas?
