quilt pricing for selling quilts
 

Hi everyone,

After 3 failed attempts to get a full time position at my current job, I am contemplating starting a business of selling quilts. I would like to know how those of you who sell your quilts, figure out the pricing structure. Do you base the cost on the full price of the fabric? I buy all of my fabric on sale. I am going to figure the price of quilting at .01 per square inch for meander and .02 per square inch for custom quilting. That is in line with one of my local quilt shops.

Any help that you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Sorry, I don't think you would make enough money to help you out. Just my opinion.

Oh I think you really need to sit down and evaluate making quilts for a living. Write down ALL the expenses , fabric , patterns , thread, batting, backing, machine needles, machine maintienience etc....then add ALL of your time... Remember when you are on an "official" payroll you are making contributions to social security and covered under Workmans Compensation. The long term effects of a hobby as a income really need to be completely reviewed.. especially when it comes to long term impacts. I think you will find you can make more money working at the local convienient store.
I am sure others are going to chime in with more details of a "home" business.

Go look at the prices on quilts and bed in a bag at Wal-Mart or Target. That's what people expect to pay. You'll end up spending all your spare time sewing and make pennies an hour because you can't get your costs low enough to compete.

Check your local area for marketing..are there a lot of other LA s in the area. Can you check with quilt guild members? We have a couple of local,small town restaurants that will hang and sell wall hangings om commission. The quilters sells a lot for about the 30-40$ price range.check out the LQS: ors sells quiltson commission. We have lots of tourists. Good Luck!

In my geographic area the amount they want to pay for a quilt would barely cover the expense of the materials. Are there any consignment shops in your area? you may want to see if anyone else is offering quilts for sale and how much they are charging. You can also look on etsy and see what folks are charging (you can also look at their sales history and see if they have sold anything too!) I wouldn't quit your part time day job until you have done a lot of research on this. Good LucK!

selling quilts is one of those things---it takes time to be anywhere near consistant...you may sell 2 or 3 quilts in a week-then not sell another one for 6 months...unless you have a shop, a following (even the well known-famous quilters make their income from their books, awards, patterns, shops...and occassionally from the sale of a quilt)
i sell alot of quilts- but i also go weeks/months without selling any quilts- i shudder at the thought of having to depend on that to pay my bills. generally i keep track of materials- and time- then decide what the quilt is (worth). to double or triple the cost of materials, then add in quilting, then add in your time...you would be looking at thousands of $$ per quilt- even a baby quilt would be in the $300-$400 range...not very realistic for most of us...unless we have a (following) with a demand for our work (like the famous ones- and they have spent many years reaching the point of having that following.)
often i make quilts for someone then show them off--and someone will ask if they can buy it.
ive had quilts on the 'quilts for sale' website that have been there for over a year- then suddenly sold

I agree with the previous posters. I am trying to sell some on Etsy just to make more room, they are at ridiculous (for me) prices and they are not selling that fast.

Start your quilting business but do not give up any paid employment you can get. When you have 6 months worth of quilt orders backed up, THEN you can quit your day job.

I should have mentioned that I would not be quitting my part time job. This would be something that I would use to supplement our income with, and maybe put some money aside for extra vacations and such. With the cost of things, I thought this might be a way to help. Thanks for all the suggestions.

Start your quilting business but do not give up any paid employment you can get. When you have 6 months worth of quilt orders backed up, THEN you can quit your day job.[/QUOTE]

Great advice. Also, you'll want to make sure that you want to do quilting as a business and won't get burned out. I admire you for wanting to make a career; I did one quilt on consignment a few years ago and made a promise to myself that I would NEVER EVER do that again. I felt so pressured that I just kept making mistake after mistake.

You night have better luck with small items and doing craft tables at swap meets, and school boutiques, lower priced items sell better and especially if you do seasonal stuff just before the holidays. People just aren't willing to pay that price for quilts that would make them worth selling.

I would love to get into the quilting business also and teach quilting. I am a former teacher of elementary and would love to make that switch, so this thread was interesting to me. Good Luck

I very much agree with you. Extra ideas I can quickly thinkof are costs of advertising, marketing and petrol, If you sell at a market or gallery you have commissions and insurance as well as table, chair and display units. Others will add to these, I'm sure.

If I were you I would begin with making tablerunners, placemats, wall-warmers and since you are keeping your part-time job maybe there might be a good selling field for you. To "invest" into the world of handmade quilts is very precarious, especially now in our present financial cliff........It seems to me that most handmade items are really hard to sell in large enough quantities to make a living at. If we were not quilters on this board, what would be covering our beds??????Probably the store-bought "made in China" ones.

Maybe teach???

As others have indicated, pricing depends so much on the area. I'm in rural South Central Texas where quilt prices are relatively low. After I bought my longarm, I did a higher end (jurored) Christmas show for about 5 years---just for fun. The show is in its 27th year, is well advertised, and is well attended, not just by locals, but from miles around. Some years were good; some years not so good. The advantage was that my name got out there, and I began picking up custom orders, as well as longarm business. It was a slow process, but now I stay busy enough that I no longer have time to 'fill the booth' during the year, so I gave up doing the show. If you'd like more info on pricing, or if you have other questions, send me a PM. I'll be glad to share info, but in the meantime, I join others in advising you that this is NOT a dependable source of income UNTIL you build a clientele.

Quilt shops are always begging for good teachers. Make a list of what you would like to teach and write a quick description of the class , how many sessions, costs, etc. Talk to the shops. Ask them what classes they would like taught. Talk to other teachers to get a feel for what they charge, what the shops charge, contracts, etc. it is a business so you will want to cover all of the bases beyond just the curriculum. There are books n Amazon.com that help with staring a sewing/ quilting business and what it entails. Take some quilt classes at various shops to get a feel for how the instructors conduct their classes...make notes on what was good, what needed improvement,etc.

You are already a teacher. I would think that you should have an easier time transitioning into a new subject matter.

Teaching beginning quilting classes is a win win. The industry and shops love to attract new quilters to the craft.

Another idea is to look into being a sewing educator for machines. Of course, you will need to be familiar with a particular brand and their models. Maybe inquire about this by contacting the manufacturer.

Sandy

First of all....a big HUG! I feel your pain, really I do. My DH has been on unemployment since June and now we are told that will end with the rest of America's on Dec 29. Yeah, Merry Christmas. I do longarm quilting from my home...and also make quilts if they want me to. I can tell you, a mouse could not survive on what I make. Especially making an entire quilt. It takes a week of hard labor to make a whole quilt and then you would only get maybe $500. if you are very lucky! The thing is...there are months when there is NO business. I mean none. My business flows like this....4 quilts come in, in one week....then none for two months. It is crazy, but if I had to depend on this to eat, I would starve. I think you better keep your part time job and keep looking for full time. Sorry to have such bad news.

The only suggestion I have is look at the website, www.Quiltsforsale . It is a well designed site for selling quilts. She charges a minimal fee to design your own web page.

Be careful about making a hobby you enjoy into a business. I did that many years ago and it took all the fun out of my hobby.

And as more and more quilters decide to sell quilts to make money the prices will go down and down. Market forces at work.

if you enjoy long arming then i would say start there. in our small area alot of times the lady at the quilt shop is backed up and people need somewhere else to go when that happens. as some of the posters said you could always make small things for flea markets/craft shows and there wouldnt be that much money tied up in it if it didnt take off imediately, especially as its going to be part time anyway at first. if it grows and gets profitable you can then choose to quit that part time job. with the economy like it is i wouldnt do that til i was sure i didnt need it. i have an extra quilt right now and even though everyone says my work is art i probably couldnt get what i have in it back because of the depressed economy in our area so it will just stay in the closet til the right person turns up for it. im sure my heart will tell me who to give it to.
carla m

I think I'd set a price per yard at something high-------$15 or the going rate at the best shop in town-------------REGARDLESS OF HOW MUCH YOU PAID for the fabric. The labor on free or $5 or $10 or $15 fabric is the same, and the labor any way you cut it, is extensive.

Personally, if you want to live on this money, you'd most likely be better off doing custom work. The general public is not going to pay $500 plus for a quilt they've not requested.

The price you charge really depends on the market in your area. Years ago when I sold crafts at craft fairs, I was told to charge 3 times what it cost, as you never get much for your time. I started out doing doing craft fairs with my sister, some days I would sell a lot and other days very little. I just did a craft fair in Nov. and although I had lots of placemats and table runners, they did not sell well, I only sold a few. However, I did bring 11 Bow Tucks bags with me and only brought 4 home, and I also got 4 more orders after the fair, which was very nice to have some "mad money" to spend. I love to quilt and if I can make some money fine, but I'd still be quilting, even if I'm only giving them away as gifts. Just hang in there and do what you love.

On second thought, you might do better simply doing LAQ for others, rather than making a whole quilt from bottom up.

I onkly quilt for friends and family...there is NO way I could make enough..When I did woodcrafts for a living, the basic rule was materials times 3...Could you get that where you live...I have made quilts for good friends ..I just did a baby quilt that she paid for all the materials and gave me an extra $30...That was fine as I did is as a favor for a friend..I would rather give my quilts away than lower my price to compete with Walmart

Figure out how much it cost for everything in the quilt..you can give them the sale cost of fabric or retail...figure both costs and then decide....then multiply by 3. On deciding whether to give your actual cost of fabric of retail, maybe choosing a price between the two.

What about teaching quilting in your home or long arm?

be sure you get a signed agreement. on price ,color, size , and time to get it done, and always get a 50% deposit, BEFORE you start.

Good LA quilters are backed up with work. I don't suggest selling. Quilting will leave you no time to make quilts.

That would be a losing proposition in our area.