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I'm really jealous of some of the prices you ladies are listing for this service in your area!

If this cost $25/hr for me instead of $60, I'd be all over that! But this is an expensive area and EVERYTHING costs more so I'm pretty used to seeing everybody but me (slight exaggeration) get a "deal" on things, LOL.

MamaHen, you just need to set up shop in MY neighborhood, and only charge me $25/hour. I'll be there all day, every day! (Until you go bankrupt from the outrageous rent and utilities you'll have to pay! LOL)

I did the class with my dealer and eventually bought a machine from her. She charged $10 an hour, charged $100 for intitial class with leaders included

I thought I would be interested but at $60 per hour seems it would be costlier than just having it quilted by others.

I would do that for the king size I have to finish right now. I find joy in "doing it myself" than in sending it off. A terrific idea.

I go to place down in Burlington, NJ - Olde City Quilts - they have several long arm machines that you can rent - one is also computerized with a gazillion patterns to choose from. (lessons are needed in order to rent) They charge the same rate, $20.00 per hour, for either machine, manual or computerized.
Normabeth

I would definitely use it, the cost of sending out is horrendous, so any wY I can save money would be wonderful.

What an interesting thread. I sure wish we had something like this in our area. It's not that we don't have wonderful LA quilters here it's just that I would like to quilt it myself. I think you have a good idea here. I know in Phoenix Az where wee winter there are some shops there that rent LA machines, Sorry but can't remember what the cost was.

This would be a good option for learning LAQ'ing before buying a long arm. But, the 'rental' charge being near equal to a shop doing it 'without your participation' eliminates this idea for me. I make lots of quilts and with more being set aside for donations/fundraising, the outlay for LAQ'ing is painful when cost for fabric/supplies and labor are already invested. I'm thinking that reducing project sizes to wallhangings or other manageable DIY free motion projects is more logical. And, perhaps prices will be more affordable for bidders or buyers.
Perhaps a LAQ'er might set up a non-profit enterprise and invest in supporting community service quilt makers? I wonder if that's in place anywhere.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sewnoma (Post 6853796)

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.

I would love to be able to take classes to learn how to use a LA - just to see if I had any talent for it and enthusiasm for doing it if I did have any talent for it.

As far as renting a machine to do my own quilting - I don't I would become very proficient just from taking the "how to" classes - I would want to do some practice on "oh, well" quilts before trying to quilt something that really mattered to me.

I think I would be a "take a class" person and then - maybe - buy my own machine.

Then I would want my own set up - because I am a slow worker - and I tire quickly - and I would want it conveniently located - like in my own house.

There are exceptions - some people just seem to have an innate ability to do beautiful quilting.

Our quilt shop does that. You have to take a class first so you know how to use the machine. I gave it a try because I was considering getting a long arm. It was the most stressful thing I ever did. The death grip I had on the handles was enough to make my shoulders ache for days. At least I didn't waste money buying a long arm and then figure out that I'm a piecer, not a quilter per se. I'll continue to send mine out and breathe a sigh of relief.