Are you a small scale quilter or a part-time quilter looking to earn a bit extra money from your quilting passion? Are you having a difficult time monetizing on your quilts? If the answer is yes, then read on.

Study the market before you begin
If you are really serious about turning your quilts into money, it’s important that you study the market before you begin. Studying the market helps you find what types of quilts are in high demand. Once you know this, you may consider only making those quilts which are in high demand in your area. Doing so makes selling your quilts easy while getting a good price for a quilt.

Those that take quilting only as a hobby don’t have to spend much time doing the market research as the results from the research might end up in a conclusion that the demand for the item which they love to produce is very low. If your choices are flexible or if you are ready to produce any quilt that the customers might want then there shouldn’t be any problems for you to earn a reasonable amount of revenue from your hobby as a quilter.

Setting the price for quilts
Determining a price for a quilt consists of a few steps, the first one is market research which you should have already done prior to sewing quilts.

Keeping track of the time spent
The second step in pricing of your work needs to be performed during the creation of the quilt, which is “keeping track of your time”. You should write down or maintain a record of the time spent on the quilt; this includes the total time you spent on the quilt (from picking a design to finishing the piece).

First, find out the overall time you spent on each of the steps in making a quilt (preparing the paper pattern, piecing, basting, quilting, binding, putting your sewing room back in order after the quilt is finished etc.), then estimate the total time taken during all these steps and divide it by the size (in sq.ft) of your quilt. Now you have calculated the time taken to produce one square foot of a quilt in that particular style.

Figure out what your time is worth
The next step in pricing is finding out the cost of your time, or deciding how much the time you sped on making a quilt is worth.

If you are a beginner or if you are doing an unskilled entry level job then the minimum wage might be between $6.00 and $7.00 hourly. If you are an expert quilter or performing difficult work, your time is worth more than that. Something around $10-$15 hourly should be a perfect rate in this case. Still, it’s truly up to you to decide how much your time is really worth. The market research you should have done can help you in making a decision about that. You may also wish to contact other quilters in your area and talk with them regarding this and come to a conclusion.

Appraisal of your work
An appraisal is a document about the estimated price and other specifications of a quilt. Stuff that should be included in a quilt appraisal are, a complete description of the piece, a defined price, methodology used in selecting the price, the purpose of the appraisal (sale or resale, insurance purposes, IRS obligation, equitable division of property etc.) and the signature of the appraiser.

Selling your quilt
Once your quilt is finished, you would likely want to sell or promote it so that you can generate your revenue for the time and effort you had put in crafting your piece. Amateur quilters, new quilters, part-time quilters, or someone doing quilting as a hobby usually find that the promotion of their product is tougher than the stitching part. So let’s list some quilt promotion methods which will be helpful for the quilters that want to earn money.

Quilting brokers and stores
It will be difficult for small scale quilters and part-timers to open their on quilt shops and sell their products there. For these types of quilters it will be useful to look for other options for marketing their quilts. There are quilt brokers and handicraft shops that would be happy to offer for sale your quilts upon paying you a commission. It won’t be hard for you to find such brokers and stores in your area and offer your pieces through them. Once your products become popular and the demand for your products increases you might want to step up to larger scale or full time quilt work and consider directly marketing your products.

Offering your pieces at internet auction websites
Another option available for amateur or part-time quilt makers is to list their quilts on internet auction sites. There are many of such sites available out there. This makes it possible for a quilter to seek an opportunity to sell the product at high price. Some of these sites even give you options to sell your products at a fixed price instead of listing it for auctions. It’s up to you to decide if you want consumers to bid for you quilt or just buy it at a price you specified.

Some auction sites even allows you to specify a “Minimum Bid” so that you can stop your piece from being sold at a lower price than you desire. This is a really efficient method for part-time or hobby quilters to sell their quilts.

Some other quilt related income avenues
There are many other ways to generate cash from quilting related activities. Next you’ll find two of such that require a certain amount of expertise.

Teaching quilt lessons
If you are an experienced quilter and have very little time (only a few hours a day) to spend on quilting, you might want to choose this avenue. You can find some centers teaching quilting and contact them offering to teach a quilting class for beginner quilters. If you have a unique quilting technique about which you can run classes, it would be much easier for you to get a contract as a quilt teacher. Another option is to offer quilt lessons at your own place. You might use your spare time like this and you should be able to bring in good enough money from this.

Designing new quilt patterns
If you are someone who is good at sketching new and unique quilt patters, you can easily earn lots of money selling them to other quilters as demand for fresh quilt patterns will always be great. For marketing quilt patterns of your design, you can use the same methods described above for marketing quilts.

Like in any venture, if you use your time and resources in the most effective manner it’s not hard to make a successful quilting career or generate good income from quilting.

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