Free Motion Friday -- Longarm Quilting Pricing

 

No one sent me any quilt pictures to play with this week (sad face). So maybe this week you will? Email a picture of a quilt for me to play with to kathleen(at)kathleenquilts.com.

In the mean time, I thought I'd talk a little about something my mom and I have been obsessed with talking about lately... longarm quilting pricing.

I don't get a lot of requests for longarm quilting. Mostly family, and a few emails here and there. I've only had my longarm for a few months, and I don't advertise or go out of my way to get quilts. I'm more than happy to just work on my own quilts, and quilts for the store or for family. I work full-time away from my longarm, which means that any time I get to quilt is in the evening or on weekends. And sometimes (especially this week) I just don't feel like it when I get home from work. I just want to sit and nap and do nothing.

This means that if someone is going to ask me to quilt for them, they are going out of their way to do it. They have seen my quilting on my blog or instagram, and have searched out the place to send a request. They aren't asking me because I'm the handiest, but rather because they like what I do and want me to do what I do on their quilts.

Which means they are going to pay for it.

The way I usually quilt takes time.  My peaks and valleys quilt took more than 30 hours. And it's lap sized.

The average hourly salary in Alberta is $27.7 per hour. To make this salary on my peaks and valleys quilt, I would have had to charge $831 for this quilt, or 14.5 cents a square inch.

Which granted, is a lot.

When people ask me how much I charge for quilting, I usually say 8-12 cents a square inch. Which, based on the quilt above, is quite a deal really. It does means that a  queen sized quilt can easily cost $1000 for quilting.

Which granted, is a lot.

But here is my reasoning.

I bought a longarm. It takes up what feels like half my house. And what legitimately is half my living room. That's a lot of resources tied up in it.

I take classes, usually not in my home town, to make my quilting better. And long arm classes aren't cheap either.

It takes a long time. Not only the quilting time, but the planning, the machine loading time, the time to answer emails, deal with shipping, and talk to people.

And yes, I could quilt quicker, and therefore cheaper. But I like quilting crazy amounts. And, since anyone asking me to quilt their quilt has searched me out specifically based on the quilting they have seen me do, I'm assuming they don't want me to quilt their quilt cheaper and faster than what I'm doing -- they want me to quilt their quilt the way I quilt quilts.

So I charge 8-12 cents for quilting. Usually 10-12 cents. And if that's too much for someone to spend, it doesn't bother me too much. I love quilting, and would love to quilt more custom quilts, but I have a full-time job. Not getting a quilt this week isn't going to mean I can't eat next week. So I charge what I charge, and while I'd love to quilt your quilt for you, if you can't spend that much, I totally understand.

Gemma at prettybobbins.com had a great post about the cost of quilting as well. 

Anyways, that's my rant for the week. Don't want another one next week? Send me a picture of your quilt top to play with! Email kathleen(at)kathleenquilts.com

Later days,

Kathleen.