I didn't think I wanted a LA when I first started quilting. I mainly did smaller quilts and quilted them (poorly I might add but good enough) on my home machine. Until I made my Bargello for our bed and I agonized over how to quilt this, I knew how much I struggled just to quilt a 50" quilt and couldn't imagine shoving a 102" quilt under that little throat. My other option was to send it out to a LAQ, but I really disliked the idea of not finishing my own quilt. I learned about a studio a couple of hours away that rents out their LAs and I thought oh well, I'll get 'er done. Well after that class we had to take to learn how to operate the machine and my first rental session quilting my big quilt with easy, I LOVE quilting! It used to be my least favorite part and not very enjoyable, but I love it and rent that LA whenever I have a big quilt to finish. Quilting on the LA had also improved my quilting on my my home machine for some reason. I should mention that I have only used the LA to do free hand work- a lot of fun, felt like Inupdated to a convertible!!!lol.
Now, loving the LA is different from wanting one, I too can't justify the cost of buying one, nor do I have the space, but surely I love renting the convertible and being free every now and then. :mrgreen: :lol: