If you spend any time in longarm and Pro-Stitcher Facebook groups, you've probably seen MOTT mentioned lately. We wanted to give a straight answer to what it actually is, why it exists, and what it costs.
MOTT stands for Machine Owner Technician Training. It's our technical-focused membership program inside MK Quilts University, built for owners who want to understand their machine at a deeper level — not just how to run it, but how to troubleshoot it, maintain it, and fix the things that inevitably come up over the life of a longarm and Pro-Stitcher system.
It's not a one-time class. It's an ongoing community and knowledge base:
MOTT was created to solve a specific problem: in most parts of the country, there's no trusted, qualified technician nearby. Try to fix your own machine without one, and you're often told you're voiding your warranty in the process.
That's a real problem for the many MOTT members who are professional quilters — they can't afford extended downtime. Lost machine time means lost income and customers waiting on finished quilts.
Here's how MOTT solves it: MK Quilts serves as the "certified technician," and once you (or a friend or relative you designate) complete MOTT training, you become a qualified technician for your own machine. We back that up with one of the largest parts inventories in the industry, often able to ship overnight when something needs to move fast. And every repair happens on a live video session with an MK Quilts technician guiding you — which is exactly what keeps the work from violating your warranty.
This isn't something we're doing quietly on the side, either: we have official Handi Quilter approval to operate this way, as long as the owner (or their designated assistant) completes the training and signs the required liability waiver.
Most machines will eventually need to be timed. It doesn't take much — stitching over a pin, a broken needle, or any number of unfortunate incidents can knock the Hook and Basket alignment out, and suddenly you're dealing with skipped stitches or worse.
Timing doesn't require a MOTT membership on its own — there's a dedicated Timing Your Longarm course available separately. But it's included at no extra cost as part of MOTT while you're a member, which is one more reason members tend to get ahead of these issues rather than waiting for a service call.
MOTT membership is $400/year or $125/quarter. The annual membership also gets you 30% off labor on service calls; the $125 quarterly option is for temporary access to training and does not include a labor discount. Compared to even a single unplanned service call or shipping a machine in for something you could have diagnosed yourself, annual membership tends to pay for itself quickly — and that's on top of the value of just understanding your own equipment better.
Want to see exactly what a service call would cost with and without MOTT? You can find our Service Estimate Calculator from our general support page, or go directly to info.mkquilts.com/servicecalculator.
If you own a Handi Quilter machine with Pro-Stitcher, MOTT is open to you regardless of where you purchased it. You can find more information and join directly at university.mkquilts.com/bundles/machineownertechtraining, or reach out to our team and we'll get you set up.
We'll be watching for your questions in the next live session.