I have some questions about quilts and Jay thought you may know. I have made 5 different quilts. 3 baby quilts and 2 full size. The full size quilts are both completly hand cut and stiched, the baby quilts are made of printed material. Can anyone tell me what is a fair price to ask for these. One of the full size quilts is Irish chain design 36 in x 81 in, the other is a harlequin king size. The baby quilts are just hand quilted prints.

Thanks, Lynn G.

-- Lynn G. (jayblair678@yahoo.com), December 24, 2000

Answers

Lynn a lot depends on the stitching. How fine the stitching etc. Different parts of the country are different as to pricing. In large cities like Chicago a well made quilt will go for a good bit but out in the country it probably won't bring but about half the price. Check out ebay for an average price.

-- Amanda in Mo (aseley@townsqr.com), December 24, 2000.

In this area quilts come up at estate and farm auctions on a regular basis. I have yet to see any rhyme or reason for what they sell for. Sometimes they go high, sometimes low. Pretty well a matter of two or more people wanting them badly.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), December 24, 2000.

Lynn. Do you have a Craft Coop in your area? If so, go show them your work.They will be able to advise you on price,and it'd a good outlet for your work as well.

We have one here and also where we lived before,as this is a very crafty area.Some are thru missions and sell around the country.We have two of them in eastern KY.

As a guess,Full size quilt prob in $175 to 500 range, depending on quality and market.Queen size are in more demand.Don't know on baby ones,didn't check.

-- sharon wt (wildflower@ekyol.com), December 24, 2000.

Lynn, around here the regular size quilts are at least 100.00. I hear people on Tradio who make them and see signs in people's yards. Personally, I think that is cheap considering all the work that goes into one. I can't imagine making one all hand stiched and then only getting 100. Maybe these are made with sewing machines, I don't know. I would try to visit some local shops and see if you can get hooked up with one. I'm sure they are beautiful.

-- Cindy in Ky (solidrockranch@msn.com), December 24, 2000.

Amanda, I make 9 to 11 stiches per inch. What is considered the right number per inch. Lynn G.

-- Lynn G. (jayblair678@yahoo.com), December 24, 2000.

9-11 stitches per inch! You got me beat by a mile. That is considered very fine stitching. If there is much in the way of fancy quilting...designs and such I'd say you ought to have no trouble selling your work.

-- Amanda in Mo (aseley@townsqr.com), December 24, 2000.

Amanda, I have been trying to keep the stiching uniform. The books I have been using as guides are basic designs. I want to try more detailed ones after I complete this one. I wanted to get my sewing skills up first. Thank you for the information.

-- Lynn G. (jayblair678@yahoo.com), December 24, 2000.

Lynn:

Out of curiosity I checked eBay. Searching on title alone I found 5,934 auctions for quilts, 270 for quilt hand and 182 for quilt handmade. When I searched on both title and description I found 9,006, 1,610 and 451; respectively.

Just looking at the listing results from a search is misleading in that the current price and number of bids, if any, may not have been updated for several days, if at all from the start of the auction. You need to open up individual auctions to find out current status.

From what I could see, only a very small percentage of these auctions had bids against them, even at fairly low opening bid prices.

Merry Christmas.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), December 25, 2000.

I recently started making quilts for myself and gifts and joined a quilting guild. They asked me to show my first quilt in their show and part of entering required that we give a value to the quilt for insurance purposes. (Although this was my first quilt and therefore priceless to me.) I didn't know how to set the value so I asked the President. She said that for machine made quilts you usually take the cost of the materials and muliply it times three. Obviously, this was for insurance purposes and not sale but I would think that as you check out your prices it will turn out to be some multiple of the materials in it that you will be able to use as a guide. Hope this helps.

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), December 27, 2000.

Thanks for all the answers.

Lynn G.

-- Lynn G. in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), December 30, 2000.