Personally I think that if you spend $15,000 on a long arm and will have to make payments on it, then it becomes too expensive a "hobby", so you have to "work" for others, thus it becomes a "job" and not a "hobby", so it's not as fun. There are some quilting machines out there that are quite a bit less than $15,000, the ones I can think of right off my head are, Bailey, WOW, Tin Lizzie, I know there's more out there. I know that the Bailey and the Tin Lizzie have pretty good reputations.