Pricing Quilts
 

I have been ask to make a queen size quilt to be used as a bedspread for a man. He has given me his colors to use. He wants it machine sewn and hand quilted around the blocks. What pricing would you ask? Do you have a formula to sort of use or what?

I don't have a good formula. But remember, charge for the fabric then figure your prices. Fabric can be expensive and it is the customer's expense.

I have never made a hand quilted quilt but have sold machine quilted ones. i triple the price of all fabric at current prices, no matter when I bought it. Then I add in actual cost for batting and what I paid a longarmer and throw in a few $ for thead and then any cost of embellishments if used.

Don't forget that your time involved in making this is worth something as well. Especially if he is asking for a combination of machine stitching and hand quilting. Good luck with it.

I wouldn't even consider it for less than about $1000.00 for a hand quilted quilt.

Handquilting is very time consuming, and therefore very expensive....I agree with scissor queen and wouldn't do one for less than $1000

It seems like we get this question and have lots of answers at least twice a month. I was a handquilter for hire until the longarmers put me out of business. I used to charge $.10 a square inch to handquilt plus the cost of the materials I supplied like the batting and backing. I also charged $15 for marking the quilting lines and another $15 or more for the binding. The only tops I have made for a customer were T shirt quilts. Those were machine assembled and each shirt had to be prepareded with fusiable stabilizer. They ended up costing the customer between $400 and $500 dollars because of the prep and aggrevation envolved. On the handquilting I charged more when the quilting was closer or more difficult. I am a fast handquilter. I was able to quilt a doublebed size quilt, including the binding, that was later raffled off by our Linus Chapter in about 6 weeks. That was working on it maybe 5-6 hours a day while watching TV or listening to talk radio. If it had been a wholecloth I could have shaved a week or so off of that time.

I don't have a hard-and-fast formula either. I usually charge at least double what the fabrics cost (at current quilt shop prices) plus batting, thread, etc. I also factor in marking the quilt, the difficulty of the piecing/applique/quilting and whether I had to design the quilt myself (I do a lot of custom work) or had a established pattern to go by. I machine piece and applique, and quilt on a hand-guided machine quilting frame, so I also charge a little to load the quilt into the frame. I usually ask for 50% of the estimated cost of the quilt up front, so I'm not personally out that money during the time it takes to make the quilt. The best advice I can give you is to not cheat yourself, your time and talent is too valuable!