Naturalmama,
Like the others, I completely understand your concern. When I decided to start sewing again after several years away from it, I was shocked by the prices of fabric, patterns, and thread. I was able to buy patterns I wanted by taking advantage of the sales at JoAnns. I had to either buy fabric on sale (which I thought was still too expensive) or remnants and I also bought thread on sale. Then I got interested in quilting. :|
The more books I read about quilting, the more I wanted to do it, but by then I knew how much it was going to cost. I came up with some extra money and was able to buy most of the tools I needed on sale quite a while ago, but they were still a huge investment. I bought fabric on sale. I can never get exactly the fabric I want; I have to buy what I can afford. However, I haven't bought a walking foot and embroidery foot (to do free motion with) and I haven't bought any batting yet. I was going to make quilts for my granddaughters for Christmas, but finally put them aside because money is just too tight right now and I can't afford the batting or the walking and embroidery feet. We're in the process of getting ready to move and it's going to take every extra penny we can come up with to buy propane for the house we're moving to. I'm hoping to get the feet and batting I need next year, then I'll finish the quilts. I thought about tying them, but I know they'll be laundered a lot and I think they'll hold up better if they're quilted.
I hadn't even thought about sending my tops out to be quilted; it's just not in the realm of possibility right now. I hope I'm able to do my quilting on my old Singer Rocketeer, if not, well, I'm not going to think about that. Hopefully I'll be able to. I might try some hand quilting, but I'm not sure how that will work out since my fingers go numb when I use a needle for more than a few minutes.
Like Moonpi said, some of us (probably many of us) just have to make do like the original quilters did. :-D