Charging by the hour rather than by the SI?

[quiltmonkey]

Last night I was doing a panto for a customer. It wasn\'t a difficult one, but somewhat time consuming (Deb\'s Swirls). It was a 72x72 quilt and took me about three hours to load it and then quilt it; probably 4-5 rows to cover the top. Most of you probably could do it faster than me, but I am still considered a beginner and I\'m being extra cautious of my tension on top and bottom, so I\'m taking it a little slow. Anyway, for something like this size and this type of panto would it be best to charge around .015 per SI? That comes to $75.00. If I divided this by three hours, that\'s $25.00 per hour. Last night I was thinking to myself that maybe to be more consistant I should charge by the hour rather than by the Square Inch?

Ironically, Dawn Cavanaugh posted a message today about her charging by the hour (Mary Beth\'s question on borders) and that got me thinking...

So, does anyone else here charge by the hour? One of the longarm quilters I know charges by the hour (I think $20 or $25 per hour). I\'m not sure if that\'s for pantos or for custom work. I should talk to her....

[Quilting Heidi]

Shana,

I have two different charges for Panto\'s so that hopefully I\'ll catch those that take longer. I too saw Dawn\'s post and was thinking that maybe I\'d use that for my heirloom work. I don\'t want to scare any customers off but boy I sure don\'t want to work for nothing. I wonder how easily it would be to provide an hourly estimate.

[Mary Beth]

Shana,

I charge by SI, but I have different levels for different pantos. So if it is an easy panto with wide open spaces, I charge .015/si, however if it is more difficult with a tighter pattern, then it could be anywhere from .0175 - .025/si. I have never charged by the hour because I have a short attention span. I can\'t remember to write everything down. I\'ve tried just getting into the habit of writing down my time to see how long it actually takes to do a custom quilt and I end up losing my time sheet or something...

[quiltmonkey]

One of the gals in my local longarm guild here in Fairbanks charges by the SI. But after the job is done, she says if she works for less than $20.00 per hour she doesn\'t feel she\'s being compensated appropriately (labor, thread, machine wear/tear, space, utilities, etc). I don\'t think she charges for thread (she used to be my longarm quilter before I got my machine).

Regardless, I want to be fair to me, fair to my customer and fair to my local longarm quilters who are doing this as a business. Last thing I want to do is to undercut those quilters or undermine them (they are my friends and I consider them wonderful resources and support to me!)

Mary Beth, would you consider Deb\'s Swirls to be tight or wide spaced panto? (I\'m leaning toward tight)

I also have a few other pantos that are VERY tight (Whoop Dee Doo and another feather one I can\'t remember the name).

[Mary Beth]

oh yes, I would say that would be a tight pattern.

I would consider "Daisy\'s" by Norma Sharp, or "Blossom" by Jodi Beamish to be .015/sq in. Then "Popcorn", "Ribbon and Roses", "Leaf Pile" to be more like .02/si. There are some in between - but you get the idea.

[ffq-lar]

Just a thought--I use BL prewound bobbins a lot and have found that my quilting charge should correspond to the number of bobbins. It\'s about $25 per bobbin. Then I know if it took four bobbins and I have charged $100 I am in the ballpark.

That is just a starting-off place and only allows for actual stitching time. I better have charged more if there was a lot of marking, thread color changes, turning, SID, etc.

(The most bobbins ever so far--17. Did I charge enough? No.)

[mxley]

The problem with charging by the hour is that you need a whole lot of experience to estimate how long a quilt will take. If you quote your customer 3 hours at $25/hour, and it takes 5 hours because you either underestimated, or made a mistake, your customer isn\'t going to be too happy to find her $75 job actually cost her $125.

The best system, in my opinion, is the way Mary Beth charges, with different prices for different levels of quilting.

After that, you simply eat your time and cost if you make a mistake, and have to redo a portion of the quilt.

Remember - customers will NEVER be happy if you go beyond your stated price, or your stated finish time! When I was doing upholstery, I always set my finish date 1-2 weeks beyond what I thought I could do. I was never "late" to the customer, but was occasionally "late" on my calendar.

I found that the few times I really underestimated my time, effort and price, taught me a lesson. But I didn\'t pass that lesson on to the customer. It was my mistake to make.

Do take the time on your own quilts and practice quilts to record all your time spent, so you have an idea of how long you spend checking for square backing, loading the quilt, and doing the quilting. Unless you have a baseline for all of these, it\'ll be difficult to decide where to put each panto.

[ramona-quilter]

Shana,

IMHO, everything that Deb Geissler has is intense and should be paid according. I love her stuff but it is lots of turns, points and angles. And since the design is close together, I always have to slow down to stay on the line; if I get off track on a DG panto, I infringe on the design element next to it.

[qwltnldy]

I have a graduated system, like Mary Beth. The difference with me is that I have a minimum allover charge of $40 and minimum custom charge is $65.

I start with allover meander at .015 psi. Nothing else is that price because even a simple panto takes longer than the allover meander, if for no other reason than you have to spend time up front positioning the thing. That being said, yes, sometimes I make $75/hr and other times I make $3.00/hr so it\'s not a perfect system. I am not quite experienced enuf to estimate how long stuff takes, but I have started keeping track. I created a Timesheet in Excel and attach it to all work order forms. I have been pretty good about remembering to write down start times, but sometimes I forget ending and vice versa!! Oh well, I\'m creating a new habit, so hopefully I\'ll get better. Then I enter all that into Machine Quilter\'s Business Manager and find out how much I\'m making per hour per quilt. It\'s pretty cool.

[DawnCavanaugh]

Shana,

I suggest that you do graduated pricing for your pantos.

Put each one on the frame and do some test drives to get the flow of the pattern. Once you\'ve got it down, then measure from the right edge of the panto over to the left until you reach a point equal to a "crib size" quilt.

Set a timer, and follow the pattern over to that point and stop. Stop the timer, too. (You don\'t really need to quilt anything, just pretend and work at the pace you normally would. If it helps, put in play fabric and remove the top and bobbin thread, and turn the machine on and go.)

Write down your time (right on the pattern if you want) for "one pass on a crib-size width.

Repeat with a lap size, twin, full, queen, king, etc.

So, if a 5-inch tall panto is chosen for a lap quilt that\'s 60-inches long, simple math means you\'d get 12 rows on the quilt (obviously that\'s not quite accurate because you\'d allow for spacing, but it gets you close in terms of actual "quilting time."

If your "single pass" time was 10 minutes, multiply by 12 rows and you\'ve got 2 hours of quilting time on that size quilt with that particular pattern. Plan in loading time, prep time, fabric advancing, etc.

If you do the test drive on every panto, you\'ll soon see which ones need to be grouped into higher pricing categories, similar to wallpaper, carpeting, etc. You might have Panto Category A = 1 cent/SI, Category B = 2 cents/SI, and so on.

The great thing about going through this exercise is that you really DO discover the hours it takes on any quilt, with a particular pattern, and can make sure you are charging correctly for your time.

Just food for thought.

I\'ll get into how to do the "testing" for overall freehand designs another time:).

[Merryjo2003]

Shana,

I researched the other longarmers in the area before doing my pirces. I\'m right in the ballpark with everyone else. Very middle of the pack. If you want a copy of my brochure, U2U me your address and I\'ll send you one. I did it myself on Word and sent the file to a print shop (on-line) and the brochures came out very professsional looking. They were also a reasonable price. They beat the heck out of a lot of them I saw.

All the pricing is explained and I have tips on the back for preparing the top and backing. I think charging by SI gives you the option of estimating closer to the price you should be getting. Also, I set a "range" for each category. That way, if I think panto is going to be easy and I find it\'s more time consuming than I originally thought, I may still keep it in the "simple" category, but charge slightly more per SI. Then I don\'t get burned the next time, and it\'s still less expensive for my customers than flipping it to the next, more costly category so we both benefit. I like Dawn\'s idea really well! That would work great for categorizing the pantos so you don\'t underestimate them the first time! I kinda trial and error\'ed it...mostly on the error side I think.:P

It seems lately I have had either simple or very complex heirloom type quilting to do. Nothing in-between! I like in-between, but I can\'t complain. I\'ve averaged 7 quilts per week since December and I\'ve been racing to keep up! My husband surprised me with a short trip out of town for our anniversay and I had to quilt until 12mn or 1 am for about a week to catch back up!

[chickenscratch]

Good advice Dawn. I will do that with the 4 pantos I have here. One is very difficult. One is popcorn, one is surf\'s up. Those are both pretty easy. I can\'t remember what the 4th one is. I hardly ever do a panto.

Speaking of pricing, I wish I was charging by the hour on the quilt I\'m working on. The backing is massive 110"x110", one whole piece (fatback I think). The quilt is 96x 102. I was doing pretty good on it, then I got that wrinkle in the backing, had to unload, frog out, reload, trying to get backing on with no wrinkles. It seems to me that the backing is constantly stretching. She swears it is 100% cotton from Keepsake. The quilt itself is being difficult, and the batting she gave me is causing major headaches because it has thick and thin places and set in wrinkles. If you can believe this, I think it is actually WORSE than the stuff Walmart used to sell.

How much am I making off this gem- $150.00. That\'s the most she\'s ever paid me, but I\'m earning every penny of it- at about $2 an hour.

So, maybe by the hour would be best; but I tend to think of the kids who used to cut grass in Florida and would charge by the hour. Sometimes a 2 hour job took all day, depending on the kid. I don\'t know how people would feel paying by the hour.

Maybe if they were given a choice of paying XX amount of $$$ or XXX$$ per hour. I might write up this invoice to show how many hours I\'ve had invested in working on this quilt, just so the lady can see how long it actually takes. There is another quilter about 40 miles away who will do anything for $40 and she has folks around her convinced that you can quilt a queen size quilt in 2 hours. She does pantos on a Grace frame, so I don\'t know how in the world she is doing a queen size quilt in 2 hours.

Interesting topic, Shana. Thanks for starting the discussion. I\'m interested in what others have to say.

[bobbi]

Since I also design quilts specific to the customer, I charge by the hour when I\'m designing and piecing a custom top... then I charge accordingly using the per sq. in. method for the quilting and binding. I had over 100 hours for the SBS I just delivered - it was right around $1700...

I\'m currently custom designing a storm at sea, so again, it\'s the hourly rate then for the quilting I\'ll charge the psi rate.

I think to make any good money at this though you have to have the base of customers who are willing to pay for the value of what we do. They have put time and effort into their piece, and usually if you purchase your fabric from a quilt shop you have paid about $150-$200 or more just for the fabric... why would you then want "cheap" quilting? What we do enhances the piecing to "bring out" the full value of the quilt... thereby making it an heirloom, a treasure for all time.

So, don\'t be afraid to charge what is fair for your services - you are the creator of a masterpiece! and don\'t forget it! LOL

[chickenscratch]

Bobbi,

You hit on a point that I can\'t get potential customers to understand. If you\'ve paid 100 or so fabric (even from Hancocks or Joanns) and have hours upon hours in the piecing, why ask somebody to quilt it for $40 or $50? That seems like disrespect to yourself, the piecer. For some reason people just don\'t see that.

[bobbi]

I don\'t get it either, but I think they don\'t see all we have to do to even get started quilting... like if the quilt isn\'t square, or has threads everywhere, or it\'s terribly wrinkled, or the backing doesn\'t fit, or just plain loading, figuring out a pattern, standing for hours, breaking thread, machine woes, etc.

We choose to do this because we love it. They choose to piece because they love it. (personally, I choose both) Who\'s time is more valuable? What place in their lives does this quilt take? Will it be passed on for others to enjoy and treasure from their ancestors?

Lots to think about... we all need to come up with the words to say to that customer who just doesn\'t value the quilting process.

[quiltmonkey]

Bobbi, I don\'t think that it\'s because the customer doesn\'t "value" the quilting process, I am more likely to believe the customer DOESN\'T UNDERSTAND THE QUILTING PROCESS! :P LOL

You are right! examples include exactly what you stated above. Wonky borders, B Cups, C Cups, D Cups, Wonky backers, Backers too small, Batting too small, Backer all wrinkled, the time it takes to plan, find the right design, the pieced top has holes, smells funny, has hair all over it, or is uneven (does not lay flat)...and the customer says "Just do whatever." for the quilting...

Some customers are not aware of and do not understand the upfront costs and overhead expenses required in order to provide longarm services (business startup, reference books, instructional education, ample work space, utilities, rulers, tools, thread) on and on. Oh, and we have to be creative and be able to deal well with people...all sorts of personalities and juggle deadlines. That stuff.

[chickenscratch]

THIS IS LONG-SORRY, but there\'s nothing good on TV tonight anyway. After you read it, feel free to add to it. This should be mandatory reading for customers.

Shana and anyone else interested,

Couldn\'t we put something together to show potential customers exactly what is involved in longarm quilting. Some kind of video or brochure.

Something along this line:

Why should you choose a longarm quilter?

A longarm quilter is a trained professional, having spent many hours of time researching current quilting trends, and timeless classic techniques. The longarm quilter has done months of research to find the machine that best suits his or her quilting proficiencies and future goals.

The longarm quilter has made a significant investment in time and money in order to become a professional. Longarm quilting systems cost upwards of $10,000. Thread, batting, tools, and supplies to accompany those machines can cost thousands of dollars per year.

But the longarm quilter just puts it on the machine and quilts it, you say. No, that is not the case. A professional longarm quilter will spend time consulting with the piecer, deciding on the best quilting treatment for each individual top. This may involve the use of a pre-designed pattern, or it may entail custom designs that will compliment, rather than camoflague, the piecers work.

The professional longarm quilter will be open to ideas from customers, and offer suggestions that may or may not include all of those ideas. The professional longarm quilter will listen to concerns about how the quilt will be used, by whom, and how often it will be laundered. Threads will be selected that will be durable and fashionable, guaranteeing a long-lasting, attractive quilt.

AFTER the professional quilter has met with the client and completed the tasks listed above, he or she will take the quilt to the studio, where many more hours of deliberation will take place before the quilt is loaded. Does the design need to be marked with chalk or marking pen? How intricate is the design? How many thread changes will be required? Is the quilt going to stitch out better loaded vertically or horizontally? All of these important decisions need to be made before the quilt is even loaded on the frame.

Attention to detail does not stop with decisions. Preparation of the quilt top and backing must take place before loading can begin. The top and backing will need to be pressed. The backing must be squared up. The top must be measured at least three separate times, to insure even quilting. Bulky seams must be pressed down and stray threads must be tucked away so they don\'t show through.

Finally the quilt is ready for loading. The backing is attached to a roller with pins or basting stitches. The backing is gently rolled onto the take up roller. The fabric must be guided into place and smoothed every few inches, so wrinkling does not occur.

Once the backing is loaded the top is ready to be loaded. The professional quilter must look at the construction of the quilt and decide if it should have a full load, a partial float, or a full float. The professional quilter will have knowledge of which techniques are most efficient in dealing with small imperfections the piecer might have missed. Once the decision is made, the top is loaded with the same diligence and care as the backing fabric. Care must be taken to insure that the top is centered on the backing, with 3-6 inches of extra backing fabric all the way around the quilt top.

Finally the quilter is ready to load batting between the quilt layers. Simple right? Not necessarily. Many packaged battings have inconsistent thick and thin areas, and bulky fold lines. The quilter may put the batting in the dryer for a few minutes to try to eliminate the folds. Very thin, or poorly made battings must be handled very gently to avoid stretching and tearing.

Finally the quilt is loaded and ready to be quilted. But the machine must be set up. Bobbin threads must be wound, checked for tension, and re-wound if necesssary. Top threads must be treated, if needed, with silicone or static relief.

Before any stitching begins on the customer\'s quilt, the quilter practices on an edge of the backing, adjusting tension and thread type as needed, to produce evenly spaced, beautiful stitches.

Finally, the quilter is ready to quilt your top. The quilting process may take anywhere from 3 hours to 3 days, depending on the complexity of the design. Thread changes and stitch in the ditch techniques add more time to the quilting process. At the beginning and ending of each stitching line tails must be gathered up and tied for burying.

As the quilt is being quilted, the professional quilter checks and double checks guide marks, measures and remeasures to be sure the quilt is rolling square and true. Mistakes must be corrected as they occur, not after the quilting is done.

After the quilting is finished, the quilt must be removed from the frame. This involves unpinning the top and the backing and carefully unrolling the quilt from the rollers, supporting the weight so the quilt doesn\'t lay on the table top. The quilt must then be laid out and remeasured, to double check its squareness and symmetry. The quilt is then hung, to be sure that it has good drape and flow. Photos are often taken at this point.

The professional quilter then carefully folds the quilt and places it in the appropriate package for delivery to the customer. But the quilter is not finished yet. An invoice must be prepared, thread and bobbins inventoried and re-ordered, batting measured and reordered if necessary.

Finally, the quilt is ready for delivery or pickup, neatly folded and free o loose thread ends. The quilt is accompanied by a professional invoice statement, showing that the piecer paid an agreed upon figure for the quilting process.

The professional quilter must allow the piecer to view the completed top, discuss any questions or issues that arise, and instruct the piecer on the best way to bind and finish the quilt. Laundering and care instructions are also shared at this point.

Finally the transaction is complete and the quilter is ready to do another quilt, right?

No, because:

Before the quilter even carried the quilt into the studio the machine had to be cleaned and oiled, the rails scrubbed to eliminate black marks, stray threads tracked down and removed, rollers leveled.

***End of sermon****

So, How do we get this information out to potential customers????

[Kelly]

I don\'t feel that I have near as much experience as most of you do, but I feel that I have made some headway trying to show piecers what we do.  Last August I held our local quilt guild meeting at my "shop."  I explained the time it took to load a quilt, picking a pattern, the importance of having enough backing, etc...  I was expecting a smaller group since it was the same time as the Iowa state fair, but my building was packed.  Some of these women have never seen our machines, let alone gotten to touch or run one.  I discussed backings, battings, putting on borders correctly.  All the basic stuff.  I was scared to death, but ended up having a great time.  We paid a lot for these machines and they become part of our family, why not share information and show them off to anyone that will listen.  Most all of the women knew nothing about how I quilt or even about rulers or what it takes to even get started in this business.  It turned out to be a very positive thing for me.  I did this as  very general knowledge and didn\'t try to use it as advertising for myself, and feel that a lot of information was absorbed by these women.  This is just one way to handle the situation. 

I also charge by the square inch and have a couple pricing structures for my pantos.  Honestly though, does anyone get paid what they think they are worth all of the time?  We don\'t really have any room to complain though, we set our own times, quotas, expectations and so on.JMHOKellyMille

[bobbi]

Shana, this is such a great topic! Thanks so much for bringing it up...

Theresa, standing ovation for you! Excellently said...

Kelly: that\'s a great idea! Theresa and Shana and anyone else interested, let\'s do it! We can each give a talk at local quilt guilds, shops, etc. AND give a hand out similar to Theresa\'s speech(?). Love it!

There is just so much left to do after a quilt top is pieced, quilters need to be informed.

And we can do that... Creating the perception of value for the quilter so THEY value their own work as much as we do.

What do you think?

[Quiltsinmotion]

Theresa , Yes you get a standing ovation from me also . Wow very , very well said .

Bobbette I think its a wonderful idea .

[Kathleen]

I too have some problems in this area. My own aunt (she lives about 3 hours from me) sends all her quilts to a lady in Wisconsin (near where my cousin lives) to have them quilted for about $50. I haven\'t been able to make her see that the cost of the LQS fabric, time invested in piecing etc is valuable and just let me have ONE to quilt and I will show you the difference!!! UGH!