Question for hand quilters
 

I'm in the midst of hand quilting an old quilt top for a customer. I charge by the yard of thread. Just wonder how every one keeps track of their thread usage when hand quilting. I'm guessing there are better methods than mine. I cut 30 one yard lengths, put them in a gallon zip loc bag, keep tally on the bag.

I've never charged anyone by the yard, but sounds good to me.
I have no idea other than yours how to do it. Please show us what you're doing,
I'm really curious. I do mostly by hand, and only recently, have done by machine on
my friends LA machine. good luck.

I'd go by the spool, not by the yardage. Just keep the empty spools and count them when you are done. Even if the last spool still has thread on it, you incurred the expense of having to buy a whole spool. So, I'd charge for that too.

I'll show it when I'm finished, you can see a pic I posted in September asking for quilting advice. Look under my name, you should be able to find it. By the by the way, members gave me great advice.

My Amish friend in western Pa. cuts one yard of thread x 10 or 12. She has maybe 10-12 needles ready, threads them all, and puts them in either a pin cushion, or to the right side of where she is quilting. She has a small tablet on her quilt and marks it down. When all the thread is gone, she starts over again. The Amish all go by this standard.
I have another Amish friend who quilts for a Lancaster store. It must be 12 stitches per inch. Her sister is now quilting and wants quilts to do so she can get more practice so she can get to that. So I am putting a note in our local quilt guild monthly email if anyone wants theirs hand quilted. I just picked up a quilt by her and her stitches are tiny but I forgot to count them before I delivered the quilt to my 90-year old teacher who just made her last 2 quilts, so she says.

Thanks for that valuable information ragamuffin.

So, the Amish quilter uses 36" lengths of thread? Isn't that longer than advised? Anyway, I'm really curious what is the actual dollar amount she charges..like how much per group of threaded needles, or what?