I'm a hand quilter but would like to be able to sandwich and baste my queen and king size quilts on a long arm. Renting time would work for me.

There are two shops near me that do this; one is about 2 miles from my house. I keep thinking about doing it, but the cost seems pretty high to me. My local stores have a 3 hour class @ $60/hour; so it's $180 just to learn. Then renting time is the same $60/hour, in 1-hour increments. I figure it'll take at LEAST 2-3 hours to quilt a queen or king size quilt, and that's probably pretty optimistic... That time DOES include having a skilled employee there with you the whole time to help load the quilt and deal with any issues (and also probably to keep an eye on their expensive machine!) so that's helpful and will certainly save some time. Both shops seem to have pretty much identical pricing and policies.

So I'm torn...I don't want to send my quilts out for quilting because then I don't feel like it's fully "my" quilt. But paying that much to do the work myself doesn't quite make sense to me either. Then again...I don't have the space for my own LA and even if I did it's nice to know that if the machine has tension problems or breaks down it's not going to be MY problem. I make kind of a lot of quilts, though, and there's no way I could afford to spend that much to quilt all of them there, it'd have to be something I only did for very special quilts...

So I'm kind of all over the place on this one. I don't think the prices are unreasonable, I'm just not sure I'm willing to pay it.

Sounds like a great idea if you can start with one machine and see how it goes. Wonder if you could post flyers or ads and ask those interested to give you a call (and maybe give you info on what they'd like to "see" in the shop? Any guilds you could visit to talk about it? Good luck! Keep us posted!

There have been previous post with concerns of insurance when renting out a longarm. You might want to check into that aspect of opening a business. I wish you the best of luck..

good idea I'd go wish there was a place like that in my area id have to drive to Lancaster bout hr and half drive and not even sure if the shops there offer that.....good luck hope it happens for you

Wow, so many replies so quickly, thanks. I think a fair rate to rent out a machine would be around $25 an hour. Most quilts can be done in four hours if they use all over quilting or a large panto. Of course a small/more intricate panto would take a bit longer. A class of 3 or 4 hours for training, then require them to purchase their own zipper leaders (they can put them on at home- save them oodles of time loading) require to buy their own pack of needles, have batting & backing they can purchase if needed, small charge for using thread or purchase their own. If I build my own building next to home, (I have 70 acres) no rent, just electric. I'll have to give it more thought, throw it out to the old man who also lives with me & see what he thinks. Seems like so many would be interested. Have thought of insurance, licenses, advertising & the like, have been in business before but that was a charter fishing business & the two are nothing alike. I'll still wait for more replies from you all & see what others say.

Two of the LA dealers in my area offer this service. But they do it more to sell LA machines then to make ends meet just offering rental service. Both also operate more traditional quilt shops with fabric and piecing supplies like rulers and such. They only have a very small inventory of LA supplies. Most LAQ that I know order their supplies on line or get them at shows but sometimes you are in a bind and need thread quick so turn to the shop.

I would think most people willing to pay the premium to rent a LA machine would expect the machine to be stitch regulated. The average stitch regulated LA retail price starts at around $8 to $9,000 for the lowest end machine. Most LA manufacturers would expect you to have several ranges of machine in house from low end to high end computer driven set ups. Especially if you plan on exhibiting at shows. Also most of the big manufacturers have established dealer territories already. Have you researched your area for LA dealers and for which brands. Oh yes, you would not be able to carry multiple brands to be a dealer. I am pretty sure all the LA manufacturers want their dealers to be exclusive to their brand (Gammel, A-1, Nolting, ABM Innova, etc) You are talking a minimal start up cost of at least $50K and that is probably a low end figure that doesn't include insurance, property rental, utilities, etc.

My issue with rental was I wanted to get good at longarming, an all over meander or simple E2E panto is all that can be completed in a few hours. The average rental time was $50 to $60 per hour after training. both dealers are over 1 hour drive so I knew I could never get the needed practice time in. for those that just want to get their quilts quilted... assume 3 hours rental for an all over meander on an 80 x 100 quilt will cost the average consumer $150 (figuring $50 per hour and they have already paid for training). They can send an 80 x 100 quilt out to a professional LAQ for an all over meander for anywhere from $80 - $120. It doesn't take the renters long to figure that out. So they either turn to sending out or start saving their money for purchasing their own.

The dealers in my area offer rental as a courtesy. A side line. For one dealer, their primary business is being an LQS because they have a large inventory of fabric and notions and also sell domestic sewing machines in addition to LA. In fact I believe the LA aspect of their business is just a side thing. The other dealer is primarily a long arm dealer. Most of their income comes from sales of machines but they also supplement with fabrics and notions. Seems to me if they could make or even break even by just renting time on their machines they would do so.

There is a quilt shop about 2hours away that ,last time I checked, was 50.00 for the initial lesson (1 hour) and then 10.00 per hour after that. I am going to assume that the renter supplies needles, thread, and of course backing and batting. I would be interested, but it's a bit of a drive. If the shop was closer to me, I would rather do my own. The last time I had quilt longarmed, it was 145.00 and she didn't quilt it the way I asked or use the color thread I asked for. She did do a beautiful job, just not the one I wanted. Won't go back.

Someone else mentioned that it took a couple of hours to do a twin sized quilt, so I'm guessing it would take me at least 3-4 hours to do a queen sized, and that would amount to $180 to $240 for a queen, which is in the range of what I pay my longarmer to do it for me. I'd love to learn, and doing it might even entice me to buy one, but I probably wouldn't pay this much when I can pay an expert the same.