Pricing Quilts
 

I have decided that pricing a quilt would be somewhat like pricing a diamond.

With diamonds, it's color, clarity, carat size, and cut.

With quilts, it's size, materials, difficulty, and workmanship.

So - when someone asks - what is a quilt worth? one needs to know more than just the size of it.

I suppose one can also add 'who made it' to the possible value of a quilt.

And add what the buyer has to spend.

Auctions are a decent place to get some idea of what sells. A GOOD auction, that is, not the old junk auction down on the corner.

If made and given as a gift, you can add the Mastercard catch phrase: “Priceless.”

It's been a few months so I'll post this again for this topic. You can tell by the "price of fabric" section that it is already outdated, but the end still justifies the means!

Jan in VA

What It Really Costs To Make a Quilt

QUEEN SIZED, MACHINE PIECED, HAND QUILTED

MATERIALS:

Fabric 12-16 yards @ $9per yd. $108 - $144
Batting $25 - $40
Thread $8 - $16

Total $ invested $141 - $200


LABOR HOURS:

Piecing 20 to 60 hours
“Setting” (designing your quilt) 10 to 20 hours
Quilting 100 to 750 hours

Total hours invested 130 to 810 hours


TOTAL COST

Paying $1 per hour (Would you do this type of work for $1 an hour?!)

Materials $141 - $200
Labor $130 - $810
Total $271 - $1070


Paying minimum wage $7.25 (by law in 6/2009)

Materials $141 - $200
Labor (130-810hrs) $942.50 - $5872.25
Total $1083.50 - $6072.25


Paying skilled labor wage $20 per hour (Don't you consider yourself trained and skilled in this craft?)

Materials $141 - $200
Labor (130-810hrs) $2600 - $16,200
Total $2741 - $16,400




(Found on the Internet 1995; unknown author)

thank you, I am so tired of hearing "3 times the cost of the materials." No one EVER suggests to a painter that he sell his painting for 3 times the cost of materials, or a woodworker, stained glass artist, or whatever.
If I get my materials on sale, and then cut them into tiny pieces and piece an intricate design, 3 times does not even come near what I am going to charge. Now if you want a quilt with just 12" squares, OK. Maybe.

I'm with you, ptquilts. For quilts, a much more accurate guideline is to price by the square foot based on the quiltmaker's level of accomplishment and the complexity of the design.

Wearing my killjoy hat here...

A quilt is worth what a buyer is willing to pay for it.

(That's assuming you are referring to its cash value. My parents would definitely tell you the quilt I made for their fiftieth anniversary is priceless - but I doubt they would have paid me $20 per hour for the 200+ hours of hand quilting I put into it!)

Alison-the-Reluctant-Realist

One of my favorite stories is about my accountant who asked for a double wedding ring quilt. Now, this guy charges me a BUNCH of money for a twenty-minute job on my books every now and then: he very quickly changed his mind about wanting it when I told him what I would charge for a King-sized DWR...$1200...wanted to know if that wasn't a "little pricy"? and when I told him what the cost of just the fabric and batting was, he really had a fit. I more or less told him to take it or leave it...I couldn't make a profit doing it for any less...WHAT ARE THESE FOLKS THINKING??? And no, I didn't make it for him! He was too cheap to pay an honest price for it...

See!! He, the trained, experienced accountant, didn't consider YOU 'skilled' or trained. It annoys the socks off me and that's why I regularly show the "What a Quilt Really Costs" article to as many people as I can.
Send him a copy!!

Jan in VA

We seem to be talking about multiple things here...price, cost, value and worth can, and often do, have very different meanings, not to mention interpretations. Interesting topic, bearisgray. :)