Quilting by hand

[Ann74]

It seems as if everyone wants to machine quilt or have quilts machine quilted these days and it seems a lot less expensive than hand quilting. I started a Quilter's Group at our church where we hand quilt for others. It is very time consuming and becomes pretty expensive depending on the size, difficulty, etc. Can anyone tell me what is a reasonable fee to pay for single, double, king size quilts?We set a minimum fee for each size and then we also measure our thread by the yard and charge 65 cents per yard. We supply the thread. Then we charge whichever amount is more. A queen size quilt usually runs $300 minimum.
Our quilters use small, medium, and large stitches. We do not want to hurt feelings,but my theory is to try to make each stitch as small as possible. We have stitches that appear sewn and not quilted (hope you know what I mean--look like running sewing stitches.)I think that the needle should be pointed toward the floor straight down, with each stitch. It is a little difficult to do at first, but as one works it gets easier to do with an up down, up down, motion. Am I correct?
How would you handle people who get upset when told their stitches are too large. Again my theory is that we should try to make everyone's stitches as near uniform as possible so it looks as if one person quilted the quilt. When any of this is mentioned, people get upset. I just need some advice. Thanks a lot.

[kenderosa]

As a person who pays someone else to quilt my quilts, I wouldn't be making them if I had to pay $300 a quilt just for the quilting. It just plain wouldn't happen. Machine or hand quilted. The ones I have had done, charge by the square inch, no matter the pattern used. This price includes the thread.
I am sure you will hear from some of the other's on the Forum who LA and those that hand quilt.

Sue

[Tess]

I do hand quilting and that's what I prefer. But I have seen machine quilting that is also beautiful.

If I had to pay to have quilting done, I couldn't afford it. I think it's each person's choice and if it is affordable why not send your quilts out to be quilted. Since I am a hand quilter, I say what you are charging is very resonable. I used to hand quilt for a quilt store and we ALWAYS got over $300.00 for a full/queen size. If you sit at the frame hours and hours it's worth every penny. Redtop

[TeresaK]

Hi Ann -
As one who has paid close to $300 for a quilt just to be machine quilted I knew that I needed to figure out how to quilt my own.
My teacher at the time does some amazing hand quilting so I know for a fact that it is way more expensive and takes alot of time.

Before I would hire someone to handquilt a quilt for me I would definitely be looking at her work and making my expectation known that he/she would be the only one working on it as every one has different levels of experience and techniques. Yes If i was paying that much i would expect the stitches to be small and even on both sides. I guess I am really picky.

Like Sue said if I had to pay that much for a quilt then I wouldn't be able to buy fabric for the next quilt I piece and that is more important
Hope this helps

[gershwin64]

Hi Ann,
I have a quilt that was quilted by the Rabecka (sp?) lodge here and it was done by several women but by looking at it you;d never know that it was because it is all the same looking. They charged by the size (or sq inch) it's a King size and they only charged $75 26 years ago, there was a couple dozen women working on it and it took less then a week to do. I have another one that was hand done by my great g-ma and G-ma and friends and that one was free ) they always helped each other out. I know a lot of work goes into hand quilting but I would think just like machine quilting that the thread would be included in the price or have them furnish their own thread if they want something special. My LAer charges per size and no extra for detailed patterns compared to meadering. Just my 2 cents worth.
Tina

[Ann74]

I certainly appreciate your comments and they are very helpful. I'd like to hear from more people regarding this subject/problem. Thanks again.

[bampish]

I have not done much hand quilting. I thought people rocked several stitches on and then pulled the needle through?

It is hard to put a price on a group effort like that. Do the charges you have placed satisfy the group for the time they have spent on it? I know our LA'ers charge a normal simple panto fee per square inch size - but different fees depending on if you want a more dense panto or specialized personalized stitching. I can understand your group working out a price that could be flexible if the person wanted a lot more quillting than normal - hence the per yard of thread charge if it exceeded the normal fee.

It is nice if people can get fairly similar looks to thier stitches, but it is a group doing it. That in itself could be a selling point. It may have the variation of a labor of multiple people - just like a traditional quilting bee. If you take pictures of portions of your work, and make sure to show the variation, people will choose you with eyes open.

As far as cost, do you have enough work to keep your group busy? If you are way too high, people will go elsewhere. If you are way too low for the market, you will quickly get a 6 month backlog.

Personally, I will only have others quilt the special projects that are important. I am too cheap to pay that much. But most peopple around me do have others quilt most projects for them, and a beautifully hand quilted piece means more to me than one that is machine quilted.

Just my 2 cents - Pam

[Ann74]

Your comments have been very helpful to me. I appreciate each of you for answering. Thank you so very much. Please keep the comments coming.