Visit to HandiQuilter Headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah

Salt Lake City isn't exactly a hop skip and a jump away from Birmingham but after a day at HandiQuilter's Headquarters in Utah we felt it had been worth the almost 23 hours of being awake!

There are many quilts displayed throughout the building.

Geoff, Alan and I spent the day touring the facility, in the classroom and at the HandiQuilter machines.

The machines are made in batches - here's the latest batch of Avante 18" showing the first step of the assembly into the machine casings.

After each machine has been assembled it is taken through its paces - each of the machines in a special room has a program of fast and slow speeds thrown at it to ensure it can withstand the demanding standards of HandiQuilter quilters.

Testers ensure that the machines can quilt consistently and without errors and skipped stitches. Various quilting designs are used to make sure that the machines can do any quilting design that the quilter might want.