most the LAQ's I know can no longer travel, take classes, or even sew....their live revolves the next quilt on the frame...deadlines for shows, fairs, holidays, you name it....it is a JOB...and it does not always you the freedom one might think that it does! Especially if you are cheap and good...

What would make it not fun for me? When the customer who doesn't quilt at all starts designing it for you.

HA...you nailed that one...

My sentiment exactly........plus, I would feel that it would have to be PERFECT and that would really take all the fun out of it. Not to mention that I don't do PERFECT.
You want perfect, go by one created in an overseas factory.

Thanks. You know I have watched friends start "quilting for money" and not really paid for their time. One of my BFFs did a oversize throw for a lady for a baby shower. The lady reimbursed her for the fabric and then gave her $20.00 for piecing & time. Nice?

The things about having customers design quilts for you and paying you peanuts for your time doesn't have to be an issue, the way I see it.

First, you should always be charging what your time is worth. Being underpaid and overworked would absolutely lead to hating it in no time flat! There was a thread recently where some lady was doing that for her quilt guild...$40 to LA a queen sized quilt, etc. Yikes! No wonder she quit!

One of the most important things in a business, especially like this, is to decide what your limits are and to only accept business within those limits. You don't HAVE to accept everyone who wants your business! If I'm in the business of making sundresses, there's no way I would take on a client who wanted me to make them an evening or wedding gown and then wanted to design it themselves to boot, especially if they had no knowledge of fabric or design. The same would hold true in quilting, for me at least. Ditto for paying me for my time. I would never allow someone to just reimburse me for materials plus "a little extra for my time", unless it was a one-time deal and I was the one who suggested it.

The people who get mad and huffy about my prices and requirements? I don't want them as customers anyway! Think about it. :)

Now I will agree wholeheartedly that with deadlines and everything else that your time is no longer your own. But the same would be true for ANY sole proprietorship type of business. And not everyone wants to deal with that- and it's a very valid point! ;)

I do longarm quilting for others, but have started turning some business away because it's gotten to where I don't have time to work on my own projects that I want to do. Too, I set my pricing rather low when starting out so the lower return on my time spent has made me think of increasing the pricing to more competitive prices to make it at least minimum wage work. In the little over a year that I've had my longarm, the quilting that I've done for others has almost halfway paid for it. So that tells you how busy I've been. And I have a full time day job as well. But I plan on curbing the outside work for other more in the coming future so I can work even more on my own things, because that's why I took up this hobby to start with.

I love quilting other people's quilts, but the first few were really stressful since I was new to LA quilting. I like to have all the time I need to do a quilt...sometimes they take forever to talk to me and tell me what they want! I have taken quilts where the owner wanted it back in a week so it could be in a show, but I won't promise them I'll have it back to them in time. If I break something on my machine and need to order it from the company, there is no way I can get it finished in a week.

I get so much pleasure from enhancing the beauty of my customers' quilts that I can't imagine ever wanting to do anything else! The "mistakes" just show that the quilt was quilted by a person, not a machine!

I did it for about 10 years and began to hate my long arm machine. I still do one every so often but I have turned several away. I don't mind doing mine but I can take my time with them. I do still love making quilts though.

I did that when I was making tiny clothes for a doll lady. After 3 years I burnt out and called it quits. It just took too much out of me and I prefer to make quilts for myself to give to family and friends.