quiltbuddy Posted April 7, 2007 Report Share Posted April 7, 2007 I am considering purchasing a compu-quilter and would like to hear your feed back as to pricing. For those of you that have a CQ, do you have a completely different price list than for the rest of us who price according to: Panto (difficulty), Custom (difficulty), etc? Would you let the customer know that you are using a CQ? Would you show them the price difference if you were "quilting with the CQ", or not? I have been told that you should still charge the same prices because you can do it faster. Not sure that I agree with that. I would appreciate your feedback. Janet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinams Posted April 7, 2007 Report Share Posted April 7, 2007 I can't tell you anything about CQ but I do have to comment on you not being sure if you should charge the same. I think you should, one you are doing this to make money the faster you can get a quilt done the faster you can start the next one, two, how many times have you seen the price come down on something because they are able to get the job done quicker? I don't know about you but I haven't. The biggest example I can think of is that before you had computers things were done by hand, now things are done faster because of the computer but the cost never went down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grammie Posted April 7, 2007 Report Share Posted April 7, 2007 Janet you address an important question. Search the compuquilter section as it has been discussed many times. Some do not charge more some do. I DO. The way I determine my charge is TIME. The same ETE can be done in 15 minutes can also take twice the time if done in smaller increments or 8 inches instead of 12 inches. Anthing I quilt that takes over an hour a row is minimum of .035 cents and more depending on time and size. I quilt not only for the joy but to make money. If they don't want to pay they can choose a design that fits within their budget and still have a beautiful quilt. I guess it depends on how you look at it. I charge based on the time not how I execute the design. I do let my customers know that I have a computerized system. If someone said they didn't want me to use it I would offer to help them find another quilter. No hard feelings unless it was for the purpose of a show and that is a team decision between the piecer and myself. I love custom intense quilting. I have many Edge to Edge:( that are .015 as they are quilted from 12 inches to 15 inches and take about 20 minutes a row. As the design is quilted smaller and requires more time and many more rows I increase the price. This is and isn't favorable for some quilters. Some the of the Computerized designs that I like are very dense and do take over an hour a row to stitch. There is no way I will charge a customer for a 10 to 15 minute stitchout the same price as a customer who requires and hour a row. This is how I do it. Some of my ETE bring in 3cents or more depending on the density that I stitch them. With that said I have stitched samples and have educated the local shops and their club members so that the quilters fully understand their options and how prices are stuctured with regard to myself and the way I quilt. You have to find out what best suits your purposes. My takes is I have spent thousands to offer these options by choice. I would like to see quilters using CQ to really think about this. I think they underprice their time in many areas. I would like them to be paid a fair price for their time. I mean this in a heart felt way. I have stitched ETE designs as small as 2 inches for decorators and I charge 4 to 6 cents a square inch depending again on the design. Although these type jobs are not falling out of trees I get one every now and then and they love the look. It can takes 12 to16 hours to do this depending on the size of the fabric but it is very good money. My CQ has more than paid for itself this year. I love love love it. Good luck with deciding. be assured that the CQ is really a nice addition to your quilting system. Do not assume that CQ is faster with every application. This is not true. What I mean by that is I can meander a KING without CQ in 3 hours or less. I cannot do this with a CQ. The CQ is faster with regard that it stitches very detailed designs faster than you can draw, trace, mark and quilt it with rulers. CQ is work too. It is a labor of love but what I love is the accuracy and perfection in the computerized designs. The perfect horizontal and vertical lines. With detailed patterns for borders corners and such there is still planning involved and time. Just something to think about. It doesn't do all the work. It will no doubt reduce the labor intensity of standing over a machine all day long for intricate designs. Good luck. You will like the CQ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smorris Posted April 7, 2007 Report Share Posted April 7, 2007 Hi Janet Great question, and I think there will be quite a few opinions on this. I think the bottom line is, what will your customers pay. Will they pay more because every stitch is a consistent length and your curves are perfect? My customers aren't interested in how I got those even stitches but the quality of the work and the options I am able to offer does keep them coming back to me and so I am always busy. I find my E2E designs are quilted a little quicker and much more accurately on the CQ and I can walk away and do other things so it saves me time there - thats a bonus for me but I don't think I should reduce my prices for the convenience it has given me. I do charge according to complexity/density of the design in the same way I would if I was hand-guiding. I try to work for the same hourly rate whether I am hand-guiding or CQing for custom and e2e. Best wishes sue in australia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quiltbuddy Posted April 8, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 8, 2007 Thanks for all your great feed back! Wow, looks like I really do need to do a lot more thinking about which direction I want to go. My DH had mentioned to me about charging by the hour (because it is a machine), but I was sceptical, sounds like a good idea, then I don't have to break down my pricing as to what type of quilting I am doing, just by $/hr, sounds like a great KISS SYSTEM. I think I really need to take an actual CQ Workshop first before I make my decision, thanks to all for your input. Janet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quiltingtina Posted April 8, 2007 Report Share Posted April 8, 2007 Okay, maybe a silly question, for those who do charge by the hour, how do you time yourself? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grammie Posted April 8, 2007 Report Share Posted April 8, 2007 Hi Tina, Your question isn't silly. Speaking for myself. I have logged an estimated time for my Designs with two sizes so to simply estimate the price based on the time it would take to quilt. CQ of course gives me an estimate of the time for the quilt design and I add 10 minutes to that for prep and thread breaks etc. of which I have few. If I am doing an ETE I can get really close within the time spent on the quilt. It is important to clear up that I charge by the square inch but that price goes up as I estimate my time to do the quilt. I always contact my customer to clear up my charges and make sure my decision is ok with them before I begin. I always have another solution if I have chosen to spend more time than they wish for me to. Problems arise and there is no exact. I have usually quoted a price to my customer before I quilt it. Sometimes I spend more time but sometimes I spend less. I usually quote alittle high and my customer is happy to see it was less than expected. Many ETE are 1.5 but that is at a large stitch scale. I do charge .02 for alot of my designs because I quilt them densely with my customers ok of course. I like dense better than big. 99% of the time the customer checks on my sheet "Quilter may decide what best suits my top" Rarely do I get special requests with an ETE anyway. Custom is custom and I simply start them at .035 a sq inch. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TinaCollins Posted April 9, 2007 Report Share Posted April 9, 2007 On edge to edge quilting- After sizing the pattern for the desired scale and quilt top dimensions, the CQ tells you how long it takes to sew each row and the number of (rows) passes needed. Add 5 minutes to each row for cleaning/changing the bobbin, and multiply by the number of rows. Use the calculator on the CQ computer. For example if I am doing an 85 by 85 inch quilt with an E2E pattern that takes 42 minutes each row and the quilt needs 7 rows: 47 x 7 = 329 (actual quilting time in minutes) 329 / 60 (minutes) = 5.483 hours Okay, I always round up to whole hours so.... 6 hours x $25 (or what ever you want to earn per hour) = $150 charged for this quilt Now, I take this amount and divide by the total square inches of the quilt to come up with the price per square inch for this pattern at this scale - Which is $150 / 7225 (85 x 85 inches) = $0.0207 Round up to $0.021 per square inch and enter this info on the Notes page for this pattern quilted at this approximate size for future reference. For custom inset designs: Figure the size of the motifs needed and note the time to sew-out (Don't forget to round up the time) Multiply by the times the motif is needed and use the same process to figure price per square inch. There will be times that you have to figure the quilting times for several different motifs and border treatments and add them together.... so also add some extra time for your estimate calculations to the bill too. I know this probably sounds very complicated written out step by step... but before too long this pricing stuff becomes second nature and even the most complicated quilts can be accurately estimated in a matter of minutes. Clear as mud.... right??? -LOL!!!!- ***Don't forget to add the price per square inch (for E2E) and price per design (for motifs, borders, etc) on the Notes page for each design so that you will automatically know what to charge for every other quilt from that point on... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quiltingtina Posted April 10, 2007 Report Share Posted April 10, 2007 Tammie and Tina, thanks for the info. Both of you make a lot of sense. Tina, I like the way you add approx charge info to the notes page....very smart! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grammie Posted April 10, 2007 Report Share Posted April 10, 2007 Thank you Tina. You explained that so much better than myself. lolol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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