pvquilter

Just curious---How many people on this board have a longarm? Do you use it for your self or do customer quilts? How busy are you ? Do you think the machine quilting market is over saturated with a lot of machine quilters? How long have you been machine quilting? Any other info you want to share with the board----

isnthatodd

I bought one last October, but have not been able to use it much because of a busy work schedule, which changes in less than three weeks :thumbup: Then I plan to use it to do my quilts, and occasionally help a friend do hers.

bela2

I have had mine almost 3 years have done many quilts on it both for myself and for customers. Being in FL it's very seasonal so I can expect to busier 3-6 month out of the year. I have the Babylock Jewel and absolutely love it - so easy to thread and maintain - let alone use.

bstock

I do not have one. Maybe one day.

amandasgramma

I have one -- had one since August, but now have a new one - A HandiQuilter Avante. I'm just as busy as I want to be. I have 4 quilts sitting in the room to do for customers and have 3 of mine to do. I'm on "vacation" right now but plan to ramp up the # I do starting in mid June.

My advice is to NOT buy one with the plan to get work to pay for the payments. It takes a while to get ramped up to feel good enough to do quilts for customers. How long that takes is a personal thing -- consider if you work outside the home or not, and how fast you catch on, and how much hand/eye coordination you have.

Madan49

I bought a used Gammil a few years ago, and have loved having it. I don't do anything fancy with it.. just freestyle quilting, but it has been such a blessing not to have to wait on someone else when I want to get a quilt finished. And it paid for itself the first year, since I'm fairly prolific and paying to have all those quilted by someone else would have cost a fortune!

gramarraine

About 10 years ago when longarm quilters were not as popular as they are now (at least not in my area) I worked for a store that had one. They only thing I could think about was getting a quilting machine. As time has passed and I am now 10 years older I have decided that for the cost of a longarm I can hire a quilter to quilt a lot of quilts. I wouldn't enjoy quilting for others. So I guess I won't be getting a longarm.

soccertxi

I have a used Gammill I purchased in the summer of '09. I had a small table top frame before that. I am about to get a business license and start up a small quilting business. I do pantographs, meandering and edge to edge. and light custom. I have a few friends/customers that have let me practice on their quilts and I have learned alot! There are alot of machine quilters in my area, but I know of 2 that are retiring. There are also lot of ladies who don't like to quilt! I just quilt along, saying yes when I can and being honest when I'm busy. Hope this is what you are looking for! (info wise).

ps. My husband says I cannot quilt after about 8:30 at night. Seems if I quilt later than that, I try to quilt in my sleep and thrash around the bed all night long! too funny!

quilter1

I have a Tin Lizzie 18LS and only use it for myself. It is a great machine and very reliable.

MarthaT

Not me, my "long arm" is the arm that reaches out over the quilt to hand quilt things. I just love the look of hand quilting but can't afford a long arm machine anyway. Guess I'm a die-hard traditionalist when it comes to quilts. But I do like the look of some of the long arm quilting.