I had one quilt sent out to be quilted. I asked the gal not to quilt thru the embroidery. She did. So I decided if this is how it works I might as well buy my own longarm machine and do it myself...............of course I had no idea what I was getting myself into at that time. Since then I went from a 9" to an 18" to a 26". All of them I added robotics to as my hands shake so badly. I still want to learn FM and ruler work so I'm not giving up on myself but I pretty much lean on the robotics to do my work for me. Some might think this is the easy way out but there's still a lot you have to do yourself with robotics such as make up the layout of patterns you want, altering them to work for your quilt, line up and the machine to stitch the pattern where you want it and then of course the usual stuff line basting, etc. Its easier but still there's a lot of work behind the scene you have to tend to.