Just some food for thought:
I have free-motioned two on my home sewing machine, and done two on a local shop's longarm (rented the machine, did it myself). Shop rental rates around here are $26.50 an hour, and most shops do not rent. The going rate to have a shop do the quilting is about $ .02 to $.03 per square inch (I think). I have struggled with my machine because it's a sewing/embroidery machine, and it's not ideally set up for quilting. I have made modifications as much as I can, but there are limits, for example, a single-needle plate would make the entire process MUCH easier, but it was never made for my machine. The machine I have retailed for about $1,000 when I bought it in 2005. Had I known then that I would use it primarily for quilting, I would've invested the money in a machine more designed for that.
I am considering purchasing a machine just for quilting, so I would advise you to carefully consider what you want to do. If you have the right machine, doing your own quilting can be easy and fun. If you don't, it can be a pain in the butt.
I love to free-motion, when it works. That's quilting the sandwich. On my current machine, it has been a challenge, and not just because of the space factor.
The kind of machine I am considering purchasing now is designed specifically for quilting:
- straight stitch only
- high speed (up to 1,500 stitches per minute)
- maximum control (i.e. several different settings) for controlling thread and presser foot tension, and lowering the feed dogs in gradations (i.e. more than one setting to lower them to)
- thread feed that minimizes curling/spiraling (and hence, breaking)
- has a deeper throat (the distance between the needle and the right pedestal of the machine) that makes managing the quilt so much easier
If you're just getting started, and you think you're going to want a sewing machine that does more than quilting, you may want to buy just a simple, more economical sewing machine, until you've played around a bit with making the quilt tops, and perhaps having someone else do your quilting on your initial quilts, and consider investing in a specialty machine later on, if you want to do more of your own machine quilting at home.
Hope this helps. It can be a complicated decision, but you have to make the right one for you.