One time when I took my quilt to a LA to get it quilted, I was told it would take 5 weeks to get it back. I was very patient, and at the end of the 5 weeks, I went in to ask how much longer it would be. I was really upset when she took her stack of orders to see where my quilt was in the line-up--and my quilt order was on the very bottom of the stack! She told me it would be another 2 to 3 weeks longer. Needless to say, I didn't go back to that person again. In her defense, the quilting was beautiful and exactly what I wanted, but moving my order to the bottom of the list was not right... :evil:
My sister sends the quilts we do together to a LA in another state, and the LA will ask if it is for a special occasion. She will do everything she can to get the quilt back to us in time to do the binding. It usually takes her a couple of weeks to get the quilt back to us, but if we tell her there is no time crunch, then she will get it back to us in about a month or so.