ckcowl

Quilting for customers can be a feast or famine type thing ( busy, busy through ( quilting season) then not much for a few months. It does depend on a lot of things. The ( market) in your area- are their a couple dozen long armors around you already? Is their a real need? How good are you?customers are going to want to see your work, know how long you have been doing it, word of mouth will be your best advertising. Do you do a lot of custom quilting? Do you have a fast turn around? To do it as a business you have to check on your local licensing requirements, fees, taxes, then there is marketing costs, how will you advertise? Word of mouth, do you belong to an encouraging guild? Do you already quilt for friends & family who think you should do this on a broader scale?

Ive been quilting for customers for about 15 years. It has paid for my new upgraded longarm machine and frame and provided us with lots of extra long weekends, concerts, get aways and certainly upped the gifts I give. I don’t depend on it as income I enjoy the extras it provides. Sometimes I go 2-3 months without a customer quilt ( gives me time to catch up on my own stuff)
i know longarm Quilters who have dozens of customer quilts stacked up - have 2-3 months or longer turn around times, are overwhelmed and quilting 10-16 hours a day 7 days a week and have learned to hate it, but it pays their bills. I decided from the beginning I didn’t want to go that route. I love when I get a customer quilt in, have a few long distance Quilters who mail their quilts to me, many locals. I tell people when they call if I already have one loaded & one waiting when they can bring theirs over. I do not let them stack up. I also set a deadline for getting holiday quilts finished.

Before putting yourself into a position of dependency do research and you kind of have to work up to it. I had a 5 year loan on my new machine, managed to pay it off in 3 but I had been quilting for customers for 6-7 years before my upgrade . It’s not an overnight successful business unless you already have quite a few customers and believe you are making enough to consider it a viable income.