I often get queries from family and friends about paying me to make them a quilt and I often reply with “no payment necessary because you’re my cousin/my aunt/my friend/my coworker/my once-let-me-borrow-a-pen acquaintance.” I give this response for a multitude of reasons, and here’s the breakdown of those reasons so as to help give people a better understanding of the cost of handcrafted items.
1. I Am Not A Magician
Each quilt I make starts with a pile of wrinkly fabric and an idea. Sometimes an idea requires purchasing just the right fabric to do the job–and sometimes that can be pricey–but if you don’t want to sacrifice the vision, then out comes the wallet. Sometimes the idea is a purchased one (patterns are plentiful, but not all are free) or one that I have spent anywhere from an hour to a dozen hours puzzling out and planning and doing necessary math calculations (and anyone who knows me, knows I loathe math–oh, the irony to have developed quilting as my main hobby).
There are software programs for handling the design and calculation work–some crafted specifically for crafters, and others for more serious design industry work–but they typically start at $200+ just for the basic programs and the more profession design ones can be upwards of $800 (and that’s not factoring in the time it takes to learn the program you end up getting if you are not one of those nifty people who already uses such a tool in their day job).
It also takes time to cultivate ideas and as much as I wish I had a magic wand to make the initial stage of quilt making go by with the flick of a wrist, I know it will never happen. So I put in the time to plan because a lot of heartache and cursing can be avoided with some initial “insurance” measures and steps. However, as with any venture, time is money.
In summation, if I started to apply an hourly rate (let’s say the federal minimum wage of $7.25USD an hour) to the making of a quilt, I’d reach a base price of$348.00USD just for a 48″ x 66″ crib sized quilt (Breakdown: Planning – 2 hours, Cutting – 4 hours, Assembling Blocks – 10 hours, Basting Layers – 4 hours, Quilting by Machine – 20 hours [conservative and includes burying threads time], Binding –8 hours = 48 total hours). Keep in mind that the $348.00USD price tag doesn’t even take into consideration the cost of supplies like the fabric, the thread, the batting and the occasional sewing machine needle replacement (and coffee allowance). This is the main reason why most people who make quilts, just make them and then gift them away to family, friends, the postman, the random jogger in their neighborhood, and almost always to a charity cause.
Giving a quilt is always more valuable than just keeping it in a pile in a closet with forty other quilts (but selling a few wouldn’t be horrible either).
