Happy Saturday All!
We have actual sun here today! Wahoo! Sun just instantly lifts my spirits!
I thought that I would post another t-shirt quilt I've been working on. I found this grouping of Ride For Dad t-shirts at a thrift store and I thought that they would make a nice grouping for a quilt; and, afterwards it could make a nice donation as Ride For Dad raises money for prostate cancer. Or, maybe someone will fall in love with it and want to purchase it!!
So, why am I making all these t-shirt quilts? I want to start taking in some t-shirts to make these for other people so I wanted to get process, costs, supplies and time down so I can give accurate quotes to people. Accurate and also fair to both of us and paying myself a wage that that will make taking this on worth it!
So frequently I see quilters selling items or offering their services in a manner that is completely undervaluing their time and skill. To me, this is a disservice to the quilting industry as a whole. What we do takes skill, ability and a LOT of time. We should value ourselves enough to be paid a living wage when we offer our services to others. Long story short, I need it to be worth my while to work for others.
Some people will say - people won't pay me that amount!!! That's ok - there are plenty of t-shirt quilt companies out there that will work for MUCH cheaper than I will; and, they do a much cheaper job in every sense of the word. I figure - if this is the amount people are willing to invest in their quilt, then I am not the quilter for them.
I could meet the much lower price. IE use much cheaper fabric, thread batting, not use stabilizer etc, do much quicker and lesser quilting, do an inside out method to avoid doing a binding AND pay myself $1.00 per hour; but, why would I?? I wouldn't want to put my name on this, I wouldn't enjoy the process and I wouldn't want to pay for or own the finished product!!
What a long rant!! LOL!! Do you have any thoughts about this?? I would love to hear them :-) Am I alone in feeling this way?
2 comments:
You are absolutely right! The time and effort let alone the cost of the materials should be fairly recompensed. Other artists (painters, woodworkers, knitters )don’t give their product away cheaply. Why should quilters?
You are correct. That is why I rarely do a commission - and would never do a T-shirt quilt for pay.
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