pumpkinpatchquilter

I have a quilting pal who is a Gammill owner (bought hers about 10 years ago) - also a rep - who was kind enough to invite me to her home last evening to share with me her setup and talk to me all about her Gammill. I have a few questions for you Gammill owners and really would love to have some honest feedback (while I'm not standing in front of the machine and under it's spell!)


- Did you purchase your Gammill with the intentions of opening a long arm business?

- If you have other long armers in your area and given the economy, do you think it's unrealistic to purchase a machine like this hoping to quilt enough quilts to make the monthly payments?

- How soon after purchasing did you feel comfortable charging others for your quilting?

- How do you feel about Gammill versus other setups, namely the Handiquilter, APQS, or A1 machines?

- I'm interested in the Vision 22, what kind of monthly payments am I looking at if I finance something like that, and what does that mean in terms of how many quilts am I going to need to quilt to make that payment?

I am really conflicted as to if I'd like to purchase one of these and open a business. I would definitely like to do some quilting for others but I'm just not sure if I could drum up the business or not to pay for a new machine. We have several long armers who literally live just up the road from me and have really great reputations and solid foundations in our local quilting community. When I started looking at these I didn't know what I wanted to do with my quilting but the more I think about it - long arming seems like something I'd really love and could get good at. But I don't want to regret jumping into something too quickly.