Tallchick, sewingpup, petthefabric - thank you for your thoughtful replies - and for the hilarious accounting of all those distractions! This meshes well with my expectations. It also leaves me with a good understanding of owning vs renting: my work time would more likely be one straight shot at a rented studio, and at my preferred pace that's gonna be a really exhausting (and expensive) day and a half.
With a 20-top backlog and at least 20 more in the pipeline, buying looks a bit more "cost-effective" than renting. With 10-30 hours saved per quilt over my table quilting time should "pay back" a thousand hours too, not to mention the smoother curves I've gotten from the little on-frame tryouts I've done.
Last edited by bobdavisnpf; 04-10-2023 at 11:52 AM.
Reason: add detail