I agree with everyone else posting here. If someone sees something I have already made, I might consider it, but not custom. The only money I would like to make would be to buy more fabric. I had a job for 33 years and it was very stressful, I don't want another. IMHO if you longarmers who do such beautiful work, you know who you are, didn't do it for a living, I think it would be a crime to waste such talent. JMHO

Quilting for money can still be fun if you are doing quilts you like and if it is not your only source of income. When you depend on it to feed a family it builds stress when they don't like it, don't receive it, or when you don't have any pending jobs. If you do it to supplement your income or to have extra money for stash, then it should be stress free.

I learned this the hard way. When I was into ceramics or macrame (or any craft), people loved my pcs. & started buying them. I had to start mass producing things & that killed the fun of it for me & haven't done either one since.

For my quilting, I get more fun out of gifting something than selling it. Some people need to do it for $ & I sure appreciate that but it does become a JOB then & not a hobby.

Hmm. Interesting question and, judging from the responses, it sounds like this is just one of those things that people believe differently about. I love to quilt and make things but would never do it for pay. I think, for me, it's because if you are making things for someone else, you immediately relinquish control (if it's custom) or wind up repeating the same idea over and over (boring). For some people, though, I know it is satisfying and rewarding. One of my very good friends runs a long-arm business successfully and loves doing it. I think that's great. It's just not for me.

ditto to that

I am planning out some quilts right now to sell. Then when I get enough items will open my story on artfire.com. They recommend a minimum of 60 items.

Also because of the stress that has been mentioned here in this thread and my trouble with deadlines and the fact that I consider myself a beginner I will not be doing any custom work.

When my kids were babies I started to send home made baby clothes to a consignment shop for sale. After a while I started to feel pressured to keep sewing so that I could make some money doing this. I had been sewing for the creative pleasure of it then that changed. I think it is the same thing with quilting, you start out loving the creativity and then consumerism takes over. I believe Charisma commented recently that if you are busy quilting for everyone else you don't have time to do the projects that you want to do.

To my mind, the difference comes from where your motivation is. I quilt for the fun of it, and my motivation is my own enjoyment. I don't care if others like my quilts (it's nice if they do, but it doesn't bother me if nobody likes a quilt so long as I'm pleased with it.)

If I were quilting for money, my motivation would have to be making money, making quilts that other people like enough to spend their money on, keeping track of the profits, figuring out how much to charge per hour or per project.

Intrinsic motivation is very freeing, whereas extrinsic sucks the fun out of it.

RST

I have trouble meeting deadlines these days, so it would be no fun for me now.

In the past, I enjoyed embroidery and did embroidery on wedding dresses on the side. Loved it until I developed a hand problem. Later on, took up cake decorating and then did that on the side until I became disabled.

I plan to make some quilts now to sell using fabric I'm no longer in love with as well as scraps. This is mostly because people keep yammering for them, but also to raise money to help pay for additional items not included in my initial Bernina purchase (like extra feet). I NEED to use down my stash and clearly don't have enough room for all the quilts that would result from that stash, so may as well make some $$ without the deadline.

There certainly is a nice variety of responses!

I admit I was interested partly because this is something I've considered doing as a business, or at least part of my business plan. I like to know what people's thoughts are on the subject, because you never know- maybe there's an aspect to it that I hadn't considered but would make a huge difference to me in deciding whether or not I'd want to tackle it! :)