I would also suggest some classes I quilt all of my own on my Bernina and I use the quilt as you go method
so depending on the quilt how large the sections are that I quilt then put together it takes some time but is very rewarding in the end to realize that I did it all there is also a good book out there she might find on eBay or Amazon called a Fine Finish by Cody Mazoran sure taught me how to do the bindings it is all a learning process does take time but she will get there

I have to agree; machine quilting on a domestic machine is no easy task! It took me a couple of YEARS of practice before I felt like I was good enough to do a large quilt. When you consider all that is involved: a day or two of work, 10's of thousands of dollars investment in equipment, not to mention space, and years of practice, long arm quilting by an experienced professional is BARGAIN at any price!

Your wife may or may not even WANT to learn to machine quilt herself, but if she does, a queen sized quilt is not the piece to 'learn' on. Like others have said, if she's interested, she should look into some machine quilting classes at a LQS. Personally, I love to machine quilt and enjoy the process all the way through. Even though I do my own quilting, it is not cheap; in the past few years I've invested a few thousand dollars in machines and equipment. For me, that is the cost of my hobby and all the pleasure I get from it. If your wife does decide to do her own quilting, you may not be saving any money in the long run anyway.:p

I have been sending my quilts out to get quilted and have been really happy with the results. I don't want to ruin a top that I have put hours of work into and the cost is reasonable compared to purchasing a long arm set up. Yes, someday I will want to quilt my own, but will start with something small to get my feet wet. Trying to quilt a queen quilt as a first project would be too difficult.

I usually do the binding myself after my quilter is done. I don't mind that at all.

I can't afford to send mine out but I've heard of prices like this. If there was a chance the price would need to be adjusted it should of been disclosed in advance. If they knew in advance they'd be doing the binding it should of been included in the price given. Alot of people do thier own on a regular machine. It is easier if you have a larger throat machine but not necessary. I'm sending you a link for a great site that has videos on doing it on a reqular machine that might help your wife out learning to do it. You can also google machine quilting and there are lots of tutorials on youtube that will also help you out. The link I'm sending you has lots of videos and even sell cd's to help you learn.
http://www.daystyledesigns.com

All the notes you have received are good. If you want someone to quilt it itwill cot and remember they deserve a decent amount for the service. It takes time, patience, thread, and the ability to make the patterns over and over and have it look good. If she is doing it for a hobby the classes are a great idea---yes it is challenging to do it on your home machine but really satisfying. Maybe she should learn how to hand quilt--will keep her busy for a long time. Many different aspects to quilting beyond piecing, appoliquing the top. Have a great time.

Quilting by hand is pretty cheap and easy to learn.

I quilt small quilts myself. Large quilts I send out. The average cost is one and a half cents per inch. You can hand bind it yourself when you get it back. There are several people on this board that you can send them to also. If the quilting is very detailed, it will cost more.

I enjoy making quilt tops but not quilting. What do I do??? I finish the top, fold it up and put it in the closet along with many others I finished. I did what I enjoy which is put them together. When I die someone else can do whatever, have them quilted, throw them away, who cares. Like I said, I enjoy making the tops.

I have not read all of the responses here but I know a lot of options have been offered. Here's my take. Since I am not a skilled free motion quilter at this point, if I were to make a quilt top that I wanted to be really special and really well done, I would send it out - especially if it were a large one.

It is possible that your wife will decide to make more quilts and smaller ones that lend themselves to a stitch in the ditch (SID) method that is much easier to do on a domestic sewing machine (DSM). Also, smaller quilts and projects might give her the opportunity to practice her free motion quilting (FMQ) in a less challenging arena.

Everyone winds up having their own preferences. I make a lot of charity quilts and I usually do SID on them with a little FMQ in the borders. That's for now. I hope to improve over time so that I can do larger and more challenging projects.

But, as several have mentioned, prices vary by your location and it would probably be advisable for your wife to find some quilt classes or a quilt guild where she can get some additional guidance.

I am a longarmer and the price isn't bad at all! Here's some pricing examples:
Quilting a basic meandering quilting can cost as little as $.01 per square inch (a 100 x 100 quilt would be $100.00)
And fancier design, more denser design or a custom FANCY design can cost up to $.05 per square inch (same size quilt would be $500.00)
Add the cost of thread ---- some longarmers charge a flat $8.00 per color..........some longarmers charge PER bobbin!
Adding a binding --- can cost up to $.20 per LINIER inch............hand sewing the binding on costs more.
Any special needs, such as ironing costs more.

Remember, the quilter is WORKING...you wouldn't expect a business to not charge somehow for the expense of stocking the shelves.

My concern with your question is ---- the quilter SHOULD have made the price understood BEFORE she started quilting it. Your wife and you SHOULD have known how much it would cost and not be surprised when picking it up.

Your question -- can you quilt a quilt on a home machine..........yes. BUT, I can't on my sewing machine because it's too small. the neck of the machine to do a queen size quilt should be a larger one. I also can't quilt on my home machine --------I lack the ability to DO it!!! I have a longarm (like the others are talking about).....the quilt stays rolled on rollers and doesn't move, I move the machine. On a home sewing machine, the machine stays steady and you move the quilt -- ARRRGH! I tried forever and couldn't do it!!!!

Welcome to the board. I think your wife paid a very fair price especially if she had the binding done. You have come to the right place for quilting advise. The ladies here know just about everything about quilting, and if they don't know, they know where to find the information. Everyone is wonderful. Welcome to you and your wife.
Sue

The real question is .... why is he asking for his wife?
If she was truly concerned, one would think that she'd be doing her own research.

This is just a guess on my part...but I think the $170 for quilting and $30 for the binding. For hand binding , that is a good price. Next time, she can ask the long armer about just applying the binding to the top. I do that for my customers and they love it! Hand stitching is not hard and I have shown other shoppers how to stitch it down. She might enjoy that part...I do!

I agree with most everything said here, but the quilter should have informed her of the price adjustment before doing the work. Bindings are not difficult to do or to learn, and your wife might have decided to do that part herself given the choice.

Quilting can be an expensive hobby, but it is also the most gratifying undertaking i've ever done. Please don't get in the way of her developing passion by nit picking about the cost. It's cheaper than marriage counseling.

I have a Gammill long arm quilting machine I paid 12,000.00 for in 2000, I can tell you it has taken quite a few quilts to pay for this machine not including dvds and tuts on learning the craft. Practice, practice, and more practice and I'm still learning. I live in a town of 200 people. Given what I know about cost, you got a good price on the quilting job, as said before your wife can do her own binding a lot of my ladies do but I will if they want to pay me for my time. By the way my husbands tractors cost more then my machines. LOL
Best of luck to your wife.

$200 for a queen, which included the binding is cheap compared to what I have paid. As far as how hard it is to do on a regular machine.......I wouldn't even attempt a quilt that large on a regular sewing machine. The strain and stress it puts on your body is not worth it in my opinion. But then again, I have nerve damage and it severely aggravates it which is why I quit doing them on my regular sewing machine. And yes, it is very time consuming to try to do on a regular machine. It has to be securely basted before even taking it to the machine. Then it has to be rolled "just so" in order to get it into the throat plate. I know there are some quilters out there who do use a regular machine to quilt larger quilts and hopefully they can give you some input.

All the advise posted here is good advice. I sometimes get the urge to buy a quilting machine but as deemail has stated you can have a lot of quilts quilted for the cost of a longarm quilter. 200 is fair or a big lower than the prices where I live. Some of the people I know charge more than that for custom design quilting. I have bound quilts for people and would never bind one for less than $30 for a queen. It takes me 3 - 4 hours of hand sewing to put a binding on and if I charge $30 that is not even $10 and hour. My bindings looks good and are worth at least $10 an hour. I have never heard anyone say quilting was a cheap hobby. I think the satisfaction received when the quilt is completed is worth the price.

Barb! I buy tops because I don't like making them! Want to trade services??!

The pricing seems very normal for Longarm work. As a longarm quilter myself, the prices can range from 1 1/2 cents per square inch and up depending on the desired pattern or custom work. Please realize that the equipment cost for a longarm machine, thread and the time that the quilter takes to actually do the work is the cost. It can take many hours to complete the quilt top to the customers satisfaction. Longarm Quilting is my passion, I love it and it is what I do on a daily basis.

Those prices are on the average side for longarm work. There is a lot of investment and training, and many hours of practice and lots of materials involved in just learning the craft and getting good enough at it to offer services to others.

The price you were quoted was for the quilting - binding is normally extra. It sounds like there was a misunderstanding on what the original quote covered -- or maybe the binding was ordered after the quilting was completed.

Just as an example of costs involved in quilting - I just paid 250 dollars, up front, for two series of FMQ classes at a local quilt shop, and books and materials are extra. The classes are each 125 dollars and are each three days long. So 250 dollars plus probably another 100 dollars or so in material costs, and also car expenses for 6 - 100 mile round trips. It's not cheap learning to quilt -- if one isn't prepared to invest in the equipment and training it's probably cheaper to send your tops out to be quilted.

OTOH, it's a hobby and I think a very rewarding one that eventually may lead one to go into business with it. And most hobbies require investment.

It could be worse -- I could be into golf. :o

For that size it was more than a fair price. Longarm quilters around here charge around 60-80 for a baby crib one, around 120 for twin size, double bed around $160, queen $240, and king size around $280-300.

Without a quilting machine assuming it were hand quilted it could be double that amount.

Depending on type sewing machine your wife has and she wants to learn to free motion quilt it she could save that money but than again it would be a bear to do so compared having it done on a long arm machine.

You have to consider the time it takes to put it together on the machine to quilt, the wear and tear of the machine itself, the thread cost used to quilt it, and if that person has to bind it by hand it's more.

I would say for what you state your wife is bless it did not cost her closer to $250 to get all she had done to it.

Considering it's a queen size, plus cost of material your wife paid to piece it together, and depending on design requested by your wife when it was quilted that quilt would have roughly at minimu a $600 plus retail value.

IMHO your wife got an excellent deal if all she paid was $200 to quilt it and also have binding done by hand. Around here it would have cost closer to $280 for quilting it and also putting on the binding.

This is a fair price. I paid $185 to have a queensize quilt custom quilted.
I put the binding on myself. If she put the binding on it would have saved a little $$.
To me this is still cheaper to send them to a long arm quilter than to buy the long arm machine.

It sounds like I'm the only one that thinks it was a bit high. I charge by the square inch. Once I make a price I stick to it. Did she ask for the binding to be done by the LAM quilter?

lots of quilters finish their own quilts. it can be a lot of work though. maybe she can ck with a Senior Center in your area for fellow quilters or ask at a quilt shop if they have classes. learning can be fun. library books and the internet are great too. watch any shows in t.v. on quilting that can be found. I'd say most of us taught ourselves.
and yes, having someone else finish your quilts can be expensive, especially hand stitching binding on.
take it slow and have fun. good luck.

I have been in your wife's place. I love to make quilts, but could not (physically and artistic-wise) quilt one on my home machine. It takes A LOT of arm strength to quilt with a domestic machine (even stitch-in-the-ditch, SID). Even baby quilts. So I sent mine out and waited up to two months to get them quilted and paid $100 for a throw/twin size quilt. So when I found a 9" throat machine for sale with frame (used) for $1500.00, I grabed it. (It is the Pfaff Grand Quilter). It has a shelf that you put pantograms on (paper with a design repeated on it) that you follow with a laser light. After one year, I have found only one pattern that I really like (over-all squiggly line). So every quilt has this same quilting design on it. I really don't like mounting the quilt on the frame with backing, batting and quilt top. But at least I can complete the quilt by myself. So if your wife really likes to make quilt tops, this might be a way to do it. PS: I have also tried the John Flynn method and didn't like it either. I would love to buy a 13-15 inch machine, but can't afford it right now.

So talk to some more long-arm quilters and get estimates. Your wife may find that the queen size quilts are not that necessary and that a throw/twin would be plenty large enough. Good luck. Tell your wife to not give up. This is a wonderful hobby.

I know that I commented earlier but I wanted say that it is nice that you want to make sure that your wife doesn't get taken.

I would pay someone to quilt amy quilt if I were going to do a joint project. The person would have to realize that the quilt would go for charity.

Well you can be thankful she is not sending quilts out to be quilted in Saskatchewan because I have paid close to 300.00 to have a queen size quilt quilted with a pantogram and that did not include the backing or putting the binding on.

I have never requested custom quilted as I am sure I could not afford the cost.

I spend the winters in Yuma Ar. and the prices are similar to what cost you are paying.

I know it feels like a lot to a person that does not quilt ...... after all the time we spend picking out the pattern, fabric, piecing it we want it to look nice when it is done. Oh and that does not include all the times we rip it apart because the seam is not straight. Trying to put all the fabric through a 6inch space is very difficult and the results are not always great. We want to be proud of our work when we see it on our bed or on someone else's bed.

I have a quilt that I paid almost 400.00 for the pattern and fabric. Then I paid for the backing and the quilting it came close to 700.00. It was a block of the month by a famous Quilter.

I hope this help you understand the process.

Hey there Kelly,
I have been quilting for a while. I make about 14 to 20 quilts a year, some for our family, some for charity and some for presents. As a quilter with hind site, I would NEVER attempt to quilt on a home machine anything bigger than a full size. I have done a couple queen quilts and believe it or not a california king. The king quilt was a night mare. We had it rolled up so tight and binding clip. I was running the machine and my wife was pulling it from the other end. NEVER AGAIN. Then when I joined the board I started to read about longarm quilters who would do quilts ofr others. I took the time and investigated and check TOTAL prices and found a couple longarm quilters that were not only unbelievable quilters but had great prices. Take the time and do the research. Some other tips might be watch the fabric costs - shop for buys and discounts (with out comprimising the quality). I always check my local quilt shop for sales and then also on line sales, but always check the shipping costs. Here on the board they have fabric sales from board memebers and you can find outrageous sales, but you have to log on when the new day ads come up as there are lots of hungry fabric shoppers that get up early just to view the fabric sales.
I hope this helps you can PM me anytime if you have anyother questions.
All the best
R

I'll throw in my two cents worth -- even though, as several posters have noted, it is possible to learn to do good machine quilting on a home machine, it may not be your wife's cup of tea. Some people enjoy the piecing or applique parts of quilting, but have little interest in quilting (assembling) their own quilts. Others enjoy quilting for others more than piecing their own. Still others enjoy and are proficient at all the steps.

I think it's reasonable to do what you like and can do to satisfy your own level of perfection while leaving the other tasks to someone else. No reason to turn an enjoyable activity into drudgery by forcing yourself to complete every step yourself, especially if you enjoy only one part, like piecing.

That said, your wife may enjoy learning to machine quilt and finish her own quilts, but if she does not, less than $200 for quilting a queen-size quilt is reasonable. She may want to learn to attach her own bindings -- a relatively easy task to do well -- to save the extra $30.

Maybe he is the one "concerned" or just curious himself. Not that it matters.

Or she's not computer savvy!!!

I, too, had wondered about reasonable prices for long arm quilting. Thanks to everyone who replied!

I went on line and googled rent a machine and found one in my state that charges by the hour. They train you for a
small fee. I am going to try it.

depends on the size and detail of the quilting. Here it goes from 1.5 cents a square inch to 7 cents a square inch. Last queen I had done was 425 and I did my own binding but that was alot of feathers.

Then he shouldn't be posting it saying his wife wants to know .... and be upfront that he was wanting to know!
It came across very much that he was looking for us to stir the pot!!
As you said, not that it matters!

The price to me is a normal price. I have been quilting several years and have my quilts done by a long arm quilter. Not everyone has the skills and artistic talent to quilt. If I am making a smaller quilt like lap size, then I will do some stitch in the ditch (which is about the easiest form of quilting). Binding is a relaxing part of the quilt plus it means the quilt is almost done. Good luck with what works for you.

The price is right in the range. Many of my customers don't want to quilt the quilt, they like to make the tops. This is supposed to be a hobby for your wife. Let her decide what parts she wants to take on. If you're concerned about the cost, set up a budget for the year for LA quilting, and let her work within it. Maybe she'll decide to quilt small quilts herself and send the big ones out.

I quilted a King size quilt on my regular sewing machine....once. Never again!! Just be glad you're not married to me - I went out a bought a LA, then later the computer. My husband was informed AFTER I made the decision.

The price quoted seems fair to me I have paid a lot more and I have paid less, for an all over same pattern machine quilted.

I too machine quilt most of my quilts, on the machine that I piece with. It is good that you have an interest in quilting because the most useful piece of equipment is another set of hands when layering and quilting, actually all the steps necessary to complete a quilt.

Paying for the quilting
 

I consider myself still a beginner and pay to have someone else do the quilting on bed size quilts. I always do my own
binding,which saves some $$. I also am learning to do machine quilting (hand quilting hurts my hands) on baby quilts,
table toppers, lap quilts, etc. But my Elna, while I love it, is just not set up to easily do a bed size, plus I don't have the
space to lay a bed size quilt out to baste. There is a new shop about 40 miles away that is a long arm machine shop--
both sales and renting time on one (you have to take a certification course first which I plan to do this summer). Look around and see if there is that kind of set-up in your area--then she can see if she really wants to do machine quilting on a long arm. I have a friend that does fairly inexpensive machine quilt who I send those quilts that are fairly plain("using quilts") but for my son's wedding quilt and another bargello I'm working on I intend to use another quilter that gets real fancy--and know I'll pay more. So there are many variables to consider.