Since I retired from the Upholstery business, people ask me to recover their furniture. I tell them no, then they comeback with name your price, so I tell them $1500.00 labor for a sofa plus materials (which is totally outrageous labor price). As a result either I never see them again or the subject isn't brought up again.
My common practice was to get 1/2 down on the fabric and the rest on delivery. If they didn't pay when the piece arrived, I went back to the shop with the piece in tow, storage fees were incurred if the piece was left for more than 30 days. . I have actually repossessed several pieces of furniture because of NFS on a check that was wrote to me.
Not every realizes what goes into a job, whether it's making a quilt or building a piece of furniture.