The Business of Quilting……

Hi Everybody,

It’s been interesting to think about all of this lately as we end the year and we are getting our financials ready for tax season etc. When you own your own business this seems like never ending work. Paper work. I hate it all.

But I frequently get asked business questions. I am always willing to share info. Maybe not specific numbers because that is a little personal, right? But I have been in the quilting industry now for almost 15 years. I would say that I have a “successful” business. I guess depending on how you define success. I thought I had already reached success and I was told recently by someone really famous that good things were coming my way and that this was just the beginning. I didn’t realize I had more space to grow. LOL!

I thought I would share some information from my personal perspective and experience. All of this is very subjective. I say that for several reasons. But I will just share my thoughts and experiences and those are based upon my own strengths, weaknesses and perspective.

I started my business as a longarm quilter. Most of you know this. Typically, it takes some time for a longarm quilter to build that base of customers and then once that is established it’s a great steady income. I have that. I don’t take that for granted. In fact it was a concern for me that I would lose some of that base when I moved across the state. I did and that was to be expected. But I also picked up a few locals here after my Pink Barn Open House. That really wasn’t my intention, but it was a welcome blessing. The nice thing about being a longarm quilter is that I always have work. It’s a more steady income and that steady income has helped me build every other element of my business. It truly has. I would also say it’s the most time consuming part of my business. I have to stand at the machines a lot. But longarming is at least 50% of my income every year. and again it’s the steady income.

All of the rest of these “Design” streams make up the other 50% Pattern design being the bulk of this half.

In order to have a really healthy quilting “design” business I think we have to have different revenue streams. As a longarmer, honestly, I don’t have to do anything else. Or I didn’t have to until my body started giving out. I was very content with where I was at and what I was doing. It was then that I realized I needed a plan “B.”

Pattern Designer

I got into pattern design. Not as easy as longarm quilting. It takes so much time to figure out the path and how to make that successful. I use my strengths. I am not a marketing genius. I don’t know how to work the system. I don’t have a business degree and I am not interested in more computer work. I have definitely approached my pattern business with hard work, quantity, and good work ethic. I meet my deadlines, I show up and I do the work and I try to meet the needs when I can. I try new things and I try to keep things interesting.   I have a catalog of designs with all kinds of techniques, styles and personality. Hoping that there is something there for everyone. However, there are pattern designers out there that have maybe 10 patterns in their catalog and they make more money than me simply because one or 2 of those patterns have gone viral or fit some HUGE need.

Pattern designers don’t make a huge amount of money. I know that seems crazy. Which is why we always have to have other income streams. When you sell a pattern for 12$. you have to think about the cost of the pattern. Just to keep things simple because there are so many ways to approach this. Let’s say it’s costs 2$ to print and bag your pattern. Now we are down to 10$. I sell some on my own site at retail. But I can’t possibly make a living from my retail sales. It’s not enough. I have to sell wholesale to shops and I have to sell to distributors to make any kind of money because bulk is where the money is. I get a few orders weekly for wholesale. Which is 6$ a pattern. So I make 4$ on those patterns. Never a huge amount of bulk on those orders either. Distributors is where you have a chance to make a good paycheck. But those patterns sell for let’s say 4$ a pattern. I make 2$ a pattern. when they order 400 of them you make a good chunk of money and it seems worth it. That’s on the back end of that.

But If you also think about the time it takes for me to print, bag and fold all of those patterns. The time it takes to ship them. I pay a tech writer to write my patterns. The samples have to be made etc. So there is a lot of time, money and effort that goes into that 1 single pattern before it is actually profitable. There are some patterns that I have published (a lot) that I still haven’t made my money back on. That is the reality.

I also see a lot of questions about why as a pattern designer we charge the same amount for a digital download as we do a printed pattern. We don’t have a choice. Well we do, I guess, but that choice has consequences that aren’t worth it. If we discount our digital downloads then quilt shops and distributors won’t pick up our patterns because we are undercutting the quilt shop. We LOVE our quilt shops and we want to support them. We also need to eat and take care of ourselves as well. That is why. Plus as demonstrated above, I am not making buckets of money on the retail side of my business because my reach isn’t that far. If you also consider the costs of having a website, retail site and all of the time and fees that go into that. You might be surprised at how much it costs to keep all of that running. The fight against spam and fraud drives up those costs all of the time as well. I have to pay fees just to offer a discount code on my site. They literally charge you for every type of service and it’s not cheap. So I have to sell A LOT of patterns at retail price just to cover the expenses of having a site.

All in all the pattern design business is NOW creating a more steady income stream but it is still mostly feast or famine. Longarm quilting is def still more reliable.

Now let’s talk books. Quilting books. Early on I realized after I got approved for my first book deal ….that a book deal wasn’t that great and I backed out before signing the contract. There are several ways to approach this idea of having a published book. I spent some time with Alex Anderson this year. She told me that a book doesn’t make you money. It’s the college degree of quilting. What she meant by that is that if you have a published book you will always have that “certificate” or “degree” that says I am a published author. As a book author you spend a HUGE amount of time writing the book, going through the process of getting it published and making all of the projects and then you earn 1-2$ a book. That is it. Having a published book for a new designer will open some doors, no doubt. But I opted not to spend my time doing that simply because I don’t care about fame. I cared about making enough money to pay my bills. But if I ever want that degree that says I am published author…basically you pay for it in time and lack of money that will be deposited into your bank account….and that is OK. I just haven’t signed up for that yet. I have entertained the idea of doing one now as a passion project. Like a legacy project that I can put out for my kids and grandkids type of a thing. Telling the stories that I want to tell and making the book that I want to make rather than pushing out whatever someone thinks will sell best.  I will just keep working and building until that comes to fruition and I can manifest what I want to sink my precious time into….because time is more important to me now.

Let’s talk about fabric.

This is a crazy kind of a discussion. As a “successful” pattern designer that works with many fabric companies..I had been asked by several companies if I was interested in designing fabric. I always said “No.” I had many reasons. Patterns make more money than fabric. A typical deal for fabric (this varies in small degrees) deals is that you make 10-20 cents on a yard of fabric. Some companies pay a percentage. That is  not enough to eat. Unless you are a crazy famous fabric designer (think Tula, Kaffe, Lori Holt) …honestly, it’s not enough to survive on. So many designers in my industry have this goal of becoming a fabric designer and again I kept saying no. It didn’t seem like it was worth it to me. But also when you work for many fabric companies you can design patterns for all of them and you get more reach. If you sign up to design fabric for 1 company ..the other companies might not want to work with you as a pattern designer anymore. I didn’t want to risk that. I held off. I decided to take that leap for a few reasons in the end.

1. curiosity 2. I had a mentor at my company that I trusted would help me because I am not gifted in marketing and all of the other things that go with it. 3. I felt I had built up good relations with all of the other fabric companies that I wouldn’t be dropped by most of them. 4. My fabric company agreed to let me keep working with all of the other fabric companies. 5. I thought it would help me get into more quilt shops

What I realized is that the people who are already following me and supporting me were truly thrilled that I had become a fabric designer. It gave me “quilting street cred” which I didn’t know that I needed or was important. At least not to me anyway. LOL!  I could go on and on about fabric design. It’s kind of like having a published book. very similar in pay, long time lines, and yet it gives you legitimacy.  But I will tell you from my perspective it’s probably the most difficult part of my business and it makes the least amount of money. I say that in all truth because I don’t have much control over it. It takes SOOOOOO much time from idea to product delivery. I don’t get to make every choice because I am a partner. When I design a pattern, I get to decide what colors are used. What size I want to make it and I just put it out whenever I feel like putting it out. I can take risks and I can figure things out as I go. It’s not that way with fabric. I don’t really have any control and the wheels move so slow before it’s delivered and then they have to work overtime once it’s delivered because if it doesn’t sell well…then it’s bad. Then I have white knuckles holding on to see what happens because nothing is predictable, and your partner is counting on your fabric to sell. There has been a steep learning curve. I am happy to learn the process and see what unfolds. But if I were to design fabric only and count on living outside of a shack this would not be the way to go. It only adds something to the bigger pot.

Magazine work.

Magazine work is another one of those things that helped my design business but it wasn’t a huge money maker. It’s also a double edged sword. When you submit a design to magazine they have exclusive rights for a time and then shared rights in perpetuity. But I found that fabric companies love working with magazines so it got my foot in the door to the fabric companies so that I could build a relationship and it worked for me. I also got a small paycheck for each quilt which helped me to supplement paying for my techwriter as it became a steady stream of income during those building years. I was also able to go to anyone in the industry and say that I had been published “X” amount of times and it got my foot in the door. Many of the contracts have since changed and it’s no longer worth it to me. Contracts are negotiable. So I do that. But I feel like I can open doors in different ways now so I just submit when I feel like it.

Lectures and Teaching

This has been something that I also had to come around to and realize was something that I had to lean into. Traveling and teaching is a difficult thing for me on so many levels. 1.public speaking. I am not a fan of this. I never wanted fame. I struggle with this so much. I make myself do it because I can’t give into fear. 2. traveling in general. I hate driving. I hate road trips. I don’t particularly like traveling at all because I am a home body. LOL. In order for me to WANT  to do any of that traveling process there needs to be something really special at the other end of that in order for me to get excited and public speaking isn’t that. LOL! But I do love people. 3. When I leave my studio, I leave my longarms and they make too much money. It has been difficult to price my time because taking 4 days away from my longarms to go do a guild event is not a great use of my time financially. They can’t pay me more than what I can make in my studio, truthfully. In my studio I can work in my stretchy pants, messy bun and eat my own food and sleep in my own bed. So the perks are amazing!! But what I have found is that I am creating connections to people. I love connecting to people. It has been even more important to me since the pandemic. When people understand me and why I created this design or that design. Or that have been through similar things and they can relate to me and are inspired …well it’s hard to put a price tag on that. I am trying to balance the traveling. I know it’s important for connection but I need to be responsible financially with my business as well.  This is also a learning curve. 5. I am not a gifted teacher. I am not. I am patient and I am willing to help and explain things 20 times if you need it. However, I only know the way I know how to do things and I am not very gifted at troubleshooting after the fact if something has gone wrong.  At the end of the day when you think it’s costing your guild a ton of money to bring in a designer you might want to break down the time associated for this. Traveling time, prep time and all of the expenses break down pretty simply that the designers aren’t making that much per hour overall after you include all of that. How much do you want to make per hour for all of your experience and expertise?

Kits/fabric

The last thing goes back to retail and fabric, I guess. Selling kits online. Again, I am not making buckets of money here. If you think about the time it takes to cut kits, ship them and buy the bags/packaging. Process all of the fees for the site ect. I am not sure how all of these etsy shops are making it honestly. I am no longer selling precuts online because I was making like 5$ (if that)for each one after everything was said and done and I just am not going to waste my time on that. listing them on the site, keeping them in stock, shipping them ect. I started offering kits simply because I was using so many solids and it seems like people couldn’t find the mix of solids and I was just fulfilling a need. it is easy to do that because I generally use the same colors and they are easy to keep in stock. I don’t have a shop and storage isn’t of abundance around here. But it’s also a sticky situation for me because some shops don’t like it if I sell kits etc. I think it’s not really a competition in my mind. They have their loyal following and customers and I have mine. If they like a product or kit and think it resonates with their customers they buy into it and they sell what they have and it’s “sold out.” They are building that connection to their customers and their customers want to support them. I will continue to offer a kit as long as I can reorder the fabrics. Once those fabrics are gone I will find another line and keep selling it. I will keep working with the design. It’s different for me and my business model. I have to keep working things to make it profitable for me. The local quilt shop will move on to the next thing.

I just wanted to give you all a little peak into my world from my perspective. ALL of this is very subjective. So many people approach this business in a different way and have reasons for why they choose to do certain things. None of it is wrong or bad. We all have different gifts and talents. Maybe some are looking for fame? Maybe some LOVE teaching and speaking in public? Maybe their gift is marketing? Writing? selling? etc  But what I stick to is that we have to have several streams that flow into 1 pot. We have to be able to know ourselves and work within our strengths. I also believe that awareness for all of our supporters is a big thing! Probably many of you didn’t know that in this industry we don’t make loads of money off of fabric or books? Since it’s such a big part of our hobby you’d think it would be more lucrative. It’s not. When you think about copying a pattern, think about how many patterns that designer has to sell just to break even.

Personally, I just wanted to share with you all my thoughts. Thank you for all of your support and connections. I hope getting a peak into all of this is helpful on our journey together.

I am happy to answer any questions and help you along the way as well.

BLessings

Charisma