Originally Posted by
Cheshirecatquilter
Believe me, if this was to be your wife's first attempt at machine quilting, especially a queen size, the number of quarters she would have put into the cuss jar would have been plenty to pay someone else to quilt her top, not to mention the stress she would have taken out on you, and that all the do-overs might have ruined parts of the top she did such a nice job on. She might never make another one.
When we pay someone else to quilt a top, we must remember that, like any independent business person we are not paying only for the hours for that service, but for their overhead -- they had to buy the machine, supply the space to set it up, pay for lights, heat, taxes, insurance (health and homeowners), maybe Social Security, etc. At this point, $170 looks like a bargain to me.
I have to agree; machine quilting on a domestic machine is no easy task! It took me a couple of YEARS of practice before I felt like I was good enough to do a large quilt. When you consider all that is involved: a day or two of work, 10's of thousands of dollars investment in equipment, not to mention space, and years of practice, long arm quilting by an experienced professional is BARGAIN at any price!
Your wife may or may not even WANT to learn to machine quilt herself, but if she does, a queen sized quilt is not the piece to 'learn' on. Like others have said, if she's interested, she should look into some machine quilting classes at a LQS. Personally, I love to machine quilt and enjoy the process all the way through. Even though I do my own quilting, it is not cheap; in the past few years I've invested a few thousand dollars in machines and equipment. For me, that is the cost of my hobby and all the pleasure I get from it. If your wife does decide to do her own quilting, you may not be saving any money in the long run anyway.
