clayzmom

I have searched and searched the internet for pricing suggestions and have yet to find a formula that would give me a price I would agree with for my family free quilt. It was actually a quilt I stumbled on by chance through making several quilts for men my husband works with.

This quilt was one I did for my grandmother. The picture was taken before I fixed some of the photos that were put onto it but you can pretty much see what it looked like. It has 3 pictures 1/2 page size, 34 1/4 sheet, and 30+ other pictures I cant remember how I printed them. Basically I staggered them smaller as the generations went out. The pics are all printed directly to cotton and trimmed with ribbon.

Now, here is the fun part.... I have had several people to ask how much I would make one for. I have quilted for a long time but never really sold my larger quilts. Throws I am used to, but a quilt like this is more time and patience than anything else. I have been told by several other quilters that I do really nice jobs on mine, my husband says I am OCD with straight lines and cutting and seam allowances. Personally, I don't think my quilts come near the quality of others.

I am not sure what to charge for something like this. I wanted to get ideas from others as how to price this quilt because I am completely at a loss as to what to charge. I know that smaller families would not cost so much, so I was thinking base price for the quilt+so much for photos. I have more elaborate tree designs that I have done in the past that work well when there aren't so many photos to make it look nicer and fuller.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

PaperPrincess

Welcome to the board. There are several pricing structures out there. One is to charge 2 or three times the total full price (not what you paid on sale) of all the materials. Fabric, thread, batting, stabilizer/fusible, pattern, etc. In this case I don't think that's going to work.
The other is calculate the amount of materials as above, then add in your labor. How much do you think you are worth/hour? at least minimum wage. How many hours do you have tied up? Even looking at the photos, I can tell that you (or someone) spent some time cropping and resizing them before printing. I'm guessing that after you added up your hours and multiplied it by the minimum wage you are looking at hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars.
If you do agree on a price with someone, make sure that something is in writing and you get a non-refundable deposit that is at least going to cover the supplies.

Prism99

Wow! I think you could charge quite a bit for a quilt like that. How do you do the photos? There are some online websites that will do photo copying for people. They use more professional quality equipment so yours may not be directly comparable, but it would give you an idea of what you could charge per photo -- maybe half what they charge. I will go search for some places you can check out and add them to this post.

Frankly speaking, if you lived near me I would be *extremely* tempted to pay you to make a quilt top for me! Would love to see your other arrangements too.

Here are the companies I have bookmarked:
http://www.fotosonfabric.com/
http://www.spoonflower.com/

momto5

When I do quilts like this, I charge between $4-600 for them, depending on size and complexity. One I have right now is a "sort-of" memory quilt with 23 4X6" photos scattered about, and a four-generation larger picture in the center. These quilts take a lot of time and effort and are worth at least what I charge. I'm sure there are folks out there who get a lot more, just as I am sure there are folks who get a lot less. And I have used Spoonflower for the photos in this one for the first time. Will let you all know how that works out!

Zinda

I never quilt for others because of the pressure I put on myself to make it perfect. Good for you in providing this service. I only hope they appreciate it, because it is truly an act of love.

clayzmom

I was using this quilt as an example. It was made for my grandmother so yes, it was an act of total love. It is a full/queen size and in all honesty I had to have had at least 60 hrs in it total with only about 20 being actual sewing time. I think I could do one similar in a lot less now that fighting with the sizes to make them fit (we have a very large family). I could probably do it much faster now that I have nit-picked me process...lol.

As for my printing, it is all in the ink and printer settings. I worked on this quite a while before I ever put them on a quilt. I will look into the suggestions I have got here though. My husband and I have actually entertained the idea of a dtg printer for the photos among other things.

cathyvv

I'd charge no less than $600, partly because I don't want to make quilts for money, and partly because even at $600, it would not cover the time and materials that go into making the quilt.

Good luck with it, and have fun!

ckcowl

visit the 'quilts for sale' website & browse to get an idea what others are charging/receiving for their quilts- one of their 'pricing guidelines' letters they sent out was to price according to size/complexity of the quilt- by the square foot- such as a 72" square quilt = 36 square feet

if fairly uncomplicated- straight forward quilt charge $20 sf. *$720*
if applique/more complex pattern/work involved go up to $25 sf. *$900
if very complex/detailed up to $30 sf. *$1080
you can always adjust as you see fit, or use a different formula- this is just what their 'guidelines' are as a starting point.

some people charge 3X the cost of materials, some determine an 'hourly' rate for their time, then add the cost of materials...
there are lots of different ways to decide what is right for you.