bananacowboy

Hi all,
New to the forum, and to quilting in general.
I just had a question I've been discussing between myself and my wife that i was hoping to get a more expert opinion on.
How hard is it to get to the point quilting and sewing and embroidering where you can make some money? Not enough to live off or anything, more of a supplemental income type of thing.

I ask this because recently (about 2 months ago) my mother passed away, so we inherited all her possessions. Among those items are her sewing machine and all the material thats shes collected. It appears to be a nice enough machine, husqvarna viking designer diamond, and a bunch of accessories and fabric stuff.
We're currently in the middle of going through her items and selling some to help cover the funeral costs since she didnt have any burial insurance or anything. From what I've researched, the machine itself seems to go fairly regularly for 1500 plus on ebay. With the other items I figure I could get another 500+ from ebay sales. That 2000 total would definitely help with some expenses, but at the same time I'm planning on starting college again soon, which will take a few years. I plan on going full time and finding some way to make some money on the side, either a parttime job, or possibly quilting.

I imagine it would take quite a bit of time to get to the point where I know enough to be able to start producing halfway decent items.
How long do you think it would take to be able to make enough to be able to justify not just selling the machine?

Thanks for any all replies.