I also want to comment, their are many of us that do less than a couple dozen quilts a year , does that justify plopping down $10,000 on a long arm quilt? I truly enjoyed taking the classes from a LQS and learning in doing this myself. The cost was $15/hr to rent and it was well worth it as I ended up doing a queen or king quilt in less than 2.5 hours and the staff are there to help you if you run into a jam. I also supported the LQS, even though it wasn't local, I traveled 50 miles to do this, but I wanted to see them survive.

I have found so many of you have had a lot of good suggestions. If my dream ever becomes a reality, I'm going to take all of them into consideration. But, of course, right now it is only a dream. My DH and I are caregivers for his Mom who is about to celebrate her 92 birthday. She has dementia and requires most of our attention. But, someday maybe I'll have the time to dedicate to something like this. Until then, I'll just keep dreaming.

Maybe you should just keep "planning" instead of "dreaming" and then when the time is right you will be all set to go!