I have bought a new tin lizzie 18 setup on a gracie frame. haven't gotten it yet but i'll be doing some quilts for others and charging for it. there's only one other lady in this town that does this. she charges 1 and a half cents per square inch, charges for thread and batting. she is excellent. what should i charge starting out? i don't want to undercharge or overcharge. i've done stippling on my janome 6600 and do good. i'm going to make a few demo quilts first of course and maybe a couple for friends at no charge just to get some practice. i'm really excited to get it, but would like to get some pointers and advice from others that quilt for profit. i need to supplement my social security and i do so enjoy all about quilts. also my name is Donna - can anyone think of a clever name for my business. like my friend who owns lqs, her name is Betty, thus the name of the lqs is: Betty's Bobbin Box.

Just some advice about supplementing your income.........CASH ONLY, no checks, money orders, or paypal.

Billy

gotcha, intended to do that.

Try to offer designs the other quilter doesn't if that is possible. I would price the same as the other quilter until I built up a good customer base. Good luck and start a blog and show your work, many longarmers get most of their business through their blogs.

the other lady is the best and i don't imagine there is anything or any design she can't do. and how do i start a blog?? duh

Is this rascal tied into a computer somehow to get the patterns that your quilting?

Billy

no not tied to computer, it comes with a few pantographs (kinda like a stencil) and has a lazer light to follow along on them. and more are available to purchase too. it has the stitch regular on it too. if you speed up, it speeds up, if you slow down, it slows down - so you always get uniform stitches. i'm excited to get it, should be about a week or 10 days.
donna

Sounds really nice!!!

I was looking in one of my quilters magazines and I saw where one was tied to a computer for the designs. It seems like they wanted close to $10,000 for it, but it included the laptop with the software loaded and ready to go.

I was thinking about building me one using an industrial machine for the long arm like a Singer 31-15. But I have not put a lot of thought into it yet.

Billy

How much experience do you have with longarm machines? I would be hesitant to spend the same money on someone with little experience as someone who has years of doing anything.

Besides offering different designs, maybe you can display your work at local quilt shops or your local library. Quilting is both visual and tactile, so you want prospective clients to be able to imagine their hard work enhanced by your own.

well i don't have any experience with it except just playing with the one set up in my lqs but the lqs's owner's brother knows all about it and he's going to set it all up for me and get me started. and yes i understand what u mean, that's why i was asking. another thing though is the lady i was talking about is backed up about 4 months. my friend called her the other day to see about having a quilt done and she said it would be March before she could get to it. i have quite a few friends that quilt, they piece them and take them to be quilted somewhere. some have to mail them off cause of that lady being so booked up. so i just feel this town could use another long armer - hopefully.