Originally Posted by
platyhiker
mjpEncinitas - I'm curious - what things made you decide that a long arm is a good purchase for you?
actually I decided it wasn’t a good purchase for me.
The biggest reason is that I’m not making enough big quilts to justify it.
The learning curve is pretty steep with a long arm and I’m at the intermediate level already with my sit down sweet 16. It handles big quilts pretty well
I thought it would be so much better than basting quilts. I have a method for basting my quilts that doesn’t hurt my back, using a table at cutting board height and it didn’t seem that loading the quiltop, backing batting on a longarm was that much less of a hassle than what I do now. The video the book sent me to demonstrated that.
The costs. $14,000 I was mainly interested in the robotics. When I compared to other things I could do with the money, I thought the other things would bring me more joy. ( six month trip around the US in a van my DH turned into a little home ). My DH was the one who wanted me to get a longarm but I handle the money in the house and I thought it was too extravagant. Maybe I’m just too cheap.
The space. I have a 300 square foot sewing room ( empty nest) but if I put the longarm in there I’d lose my desk and perhaps the big table my friends use when we quilt together three times a month.
The book really clarified my thinking.