It's been many years and many quilts ago, but I sent a quilt off to a LAQ recommended by a quilt shop I went to on a regular basis. The LAQ had done several quilts for me before doing this particular one and they had all been just fine - pretty well done in fact. This one had a lot of "eye lashes" on the back side of the quilt - very noticable. I contacted her several times asking to talk to her - she never charged me for it, nor did she ever return a call or email. I was so disappointed that she wouldn't talk to me. I have the quilt over a chair and my daughter said it will be going with her when she moves out - she loves it. I made another quilt for my niece's daughter and sent it instead - she never knew about the first one.
I am new to longarm quilting (doing it for just the last six months). I have only done quilts for a group that gives me their charity quilts to practice on. I have found that pantographs are not my thing - I have difficulty making them look nice with smooth lines - I really enjoy freehand quilting and am happy to say each one is nicer than the last. However, I have spent some time unquilting because I have to be proud of it before it goes out the door - charity or not - it needs to look its best. Sometimes that hasn't been easy given the quality of the piecing, but I have been given a lot of positive feedback on the ones I have finished so far.
I took two to a customer today - she paid for the batting and I did everything else for free. I did have some issues in my meandering loops on one of the quilts and she gave me some tips on what to try - I was so thankful for her help. They will probably wash out once the binding has been sewn down and it can be tossed into the washer/dryer. The second quilt took me over two hours of stitching (on the longarm) and I was pretty happy with it and so was the customer. I have found that taking more time nets a better product!
I am in no way ready to charge a customer for my work yet! I have only taken one class so far and want to take some more before doing a quilt for someone for money. I would feel horrible if they didn't like it -