Hi Pam,
All I can tell you is that the Amish in Pennsyvania (sorry if I spelled it incorrectly) spend a winter on one quilt, all done by hand, the local asking price for a queen sized quilt is about $600 dollars. I just read that in this months National Geographic. She said in the article that she gets frustrated if someone complains that this was the cost of their entire bed because they have very little knowledge of all the work that went into it. Anyone who goes to the trouble of hand quilting really deserves to charge that kind of price in my opinion.
However, I'm in the place your speaking of as well... the last gal (who was close but not exactly family) I asked her to buy all the supplies and gave her an idea of what to buy. It did not bother me much to do it this way because I was going to be quilting this winter anyway - and at least it saved me the cost of the supplies and saved me a bit of space in my closet.... dunno if that makes sense.
anyway, my two cents for what they are worth...
Lori