Why Do Quilts Cost so Much Anyway? - The Green Patchwork Baby Quilt

 One of the most common questions I (and others who sell quilts) get is...

"Why is this so expensive?  I can get a blanket at the store for like $60..." 

It's true,  you can - but let's break down what goes into a quilt made by a person running a small business.  For an example, I kept track of what went into making this very simple, green patchwork baby quilt.  Quilt is available for sale: HERE

Materials:

Quality quilting fabric is currently $10-$12 per 36" x 42" piece. Occasionally, a sale fabric will help, but for this calculation, I'm going to use $10 as the fabric cost.  A quilt also includes batting between the front and back.  I use Warm & Natural, which I buy in bulk.  This works out to about $5 for an equivalent sized piece of batting.

So for this quilt measuring 34" x 43" , we're looking at $9.67 for the front, $12.38 for the back, $2.63 for the binding, and $5.63 for the middle - not even accounting for all the fabric that gets lost in the seams as it gets sewn together.

Total material cost is $30.31

Labor:

Yes, I do this mostly for a hobby.  However, all labor should be paid a living wage.  For my area, according to livingwage.mit.edu, a living wage is $13.15 per hour assuming no children and just one adult in my household.  

I kept track of all the time required to make this quilt - cutting, sewing, quilting, binding - and it added up to 5.9 hours.  Note, this was a very simple quilt, with a simple quilting pattern, all done on a home machine.

Total labor cost: $77.81

Other Costs:

Additional costs go into making a quilt - but these aren't always captured.  What about the electricity I used to run the sewing machine, the upkeep required, the thread cost, the time spent staging and photographing, posting to a website and creating a listing...I did not capture these in the pricing.

Let's talk a bit about posting to a website.  I currently use Etsy to sell my quilts.  This means that I also have to account for their fees when setting a price.  Also, this site prioritizes listings with free shipping - but we all know that free shipping isn't actually free.  I have to account for this cost when setting a price as well. 

Finally, if I want to make a profit on this - I need to add this in.  The profit is the money I can actually use to invest back into my business.  Profit means I can continue to buy fabric, I can upgrade my camera, I can buy a new quilt pattern for sale...

So, adding all these costs in, and rounding up a bit to be consistent, we come to a final price listing of $140.

Many shoppers will say this is too high and pass on the quilt, choosing the mass produced version instead.  And that's a choice you can make.  But before you do, please think about the numbers above and what corners a corporation would have to cut to be able to shrink the numbers.  

Also know that I appreciate every single sale, and love being able to provide a quilt that will be a family heirloom for years to come.

(This quilt is for sale: HERE)