Do you have ROOM for a longarm? I did and then purchased one using their no interest financing. I am paying $219 a month for 4 years. I got the machine and frame at a quilt show where they had this financing. I pay ahead of time every month. I guess it depends on how much you would use it and would you consider doing quilts for others who would pay you. After awhile, you would feel that you were experienced enough to do that. But you would have to LOVE it. I love doing it and have finished 16 quilts in 8 months. I have almost covered my expenses without doing anything for another person.
This is really a personal decision, but the frames are huge. 10 to 12 feet. Could you do that?

I quilt mine on my domestic machine. If I have a king size I do it "QAYG" or in sections.
I do have some block quilts that i am goin gto "tack".

If I cannot quilt a quilt by SID then I send it out. I have to learn to do it myself!

I quilt all of mine myself. Some of them are hand quilted, most are stitch in the ditch or meander FMQ. I use a cheapy dinky Walmart quality Brother machine which has never disappointed me. Yes, on a bigger quilt I have to push it through the throat, but, the machine just does chugging along.

I do mine on a Singer 301 with a 7 1/4" throat - though the opening is a little higher that some of the modern machines. FMQ, SITD and on the last one thread painting the images. My little machine does whatever I want her to.

Leah Day had a series of FM lessons that started last Wednesday. I'm sure the intro and the first lesson are still up. The next lesson will be posted Wednesday and a new one every Wednesday after that. It does start very simply. Here is the intro to " The Free Motion Quilting Project".
http://www.freemotionquilting.blogsp...tart-here.html

Make a sandwich to practice on and have fun. The hardest thing for me was the concept that I could sew backwards by moving the fabric. We are so attuned to sewing forward.

I did my first one and one other one on my regular domestic machine. I helped my DD do the quilting on the second quilt I made using her domestic machine. THEN -- I bought a longarm and went into business. A few quilts for practice and I was on my way. I do tiny things on my domestic, but even table runners etc I do on the longarm. I also have the computer system with it so have lots of designs to choose from. Love being able to manipulate a design to fit where I want it and then change over and add free motion quilting with the LA to the same quilt.

Phyllis
QuiltingGrannie
Quilter's Pantry

I always tied mine, now I have a long arm.

Our local long-armer rents time on her machine - quite reasonably after you take a class on her machine. You might check into that. I think she charges $12.00/hr. Every month at our guild meeting she draws a name for a free long arm lesson. But I do all mine on my domestic machine. I've done up to queen size. It takes practice but it's very doable.

I do my own mostly - very simply - either stitch near a ditch (I often use a scallop stitch that's on my machine) - or crosshatch. I have sent out 4 to a friend who has charged me $50 each - 2 large lap and 2 twin. I send out when I want it fancier than I can do, when the quilt was for my husband and I didn't want him to see it, and when it was larger than I wanted to fool with. I SOOOO want to take a class, but have avoided internet courses.. wanted a real person teacher, but have not found one yet.

I have been learning to do my own. I handquilt, which I love, but it takes me forever. I have a couple of queen size quilts that have a tricot top that I am working on and those are being handquilted, mostly because I haven't tried machine quilting those yet. I have done a queen quilt for my sil, and am undoing parts of it, because I found tucks. I use my viking lily 550 to do this. My daughter did a crib quilt on her brother machine that we got at walmart. I find I do need to take breaks, so when I have stitched for a while, and I am at a stopping point, I move on to something else for a while.

I kind of want a longarm, but I would probably need to go into business to help pay for it, and I haven't decided if I want to do that yet.