Originally Posted by
valleyquiltermo
I bought one of those cheap Wal-Mart quilts at a yard sale for $5.00 it had been washed twice and was falling apart.
I hung it in my shop to show people who think my prices are to high. They can quickly see the difference when side by side with one of my quilts.
I have one of those "hand-quilted" $39.99 quilts I'll send you too. Those quilts are everywhere here. Not the Walmart quilts, but the ones sold at flea-markets and tourist-shops. I once asked the owner of one of them how they can sell them so cheap. He told me that a woman owns a town and let's people live in the town "for free". There is a fabric factory (he didn't tell me how the tops were made, but I imagine a sewing factory) and they get a oxen-pulled cart full of quilt tops. They have these needles that are 9-inches long and load them up and knock a cart full of quilts out in a week. That's how they pay their rent.
Then tourists come to the Smoky mountains and see these cheap, crappy quilts and think that's how "homemade" quilts are supposed to be! And they buy a $40 hand-crafted souvenir to take back home and then they and their friends think that hand crafts shouldn't be more than $40!