I justify the cost of the LAQ by reasoning that if I go to all the trouble of making a nice quilt, it's worth it to have it nice finished, which I can't do myself. I'm only making them for myself, my children, my grandchildren and I made one for my 93 yr old Aunt to inspire her to get on the stick and make the ones she wants to for her children (she's left instructions that I get it back when "she doesn't need it anymore") and I made one for my best friend. I also made one for my brother and one for SIL for Christmas this year but I'm going to enlist the help of their children to pay for the quilting. Since these are supposed to last a lifetime I don't get caught up in the cost, as the saying goes, anything worth doing is worth doing well. You can't put a price on heirloom quality, the LAQ can but you can't.

The only regrets I almost had is, when I started quilting last December, I made 5 quilts in one month, being new to it I made them too small for my growing granddaughters so I have to make larger ones for them and will make them bed size. I once considered the first ones wasted money on the quilting but now I look at it as my great grandchildren will have quilts by me long after I'm gone and given my age and health and the young age of my 7 grandchildren the odds of me being gone before I see great grandchildren is pretty high. The reaction of my daughter and 4 of my granddaughters last Christmas to their quilts was worth more than gold so the few hundred I spent having them quilted was inconsequential.

My machine is so small I can barely quilt a mug rug, anything bigger is not an option. I have someone who will invest in a LA for me but then I'd just have to build a new building to house it, so instead of $7000 it would end up costing me $20000 vs a couple of thousand to a LAQ.

You just have to figure out if it's important enough to you and then ask yourself if you've ever wasted that much money on something useless before, I bet you have.