As we hit the middle of January, and I read across my social media feeds of everyone’s epic plans to ramp up this and change that, I find myself retreating to my studio armchair with a cuppa to ponder what advice I would offer for giving your sewing practice an infusion of new year’s intentions.

Of course I have an ORANGE pillow!

No, I’m not going to give you an insurmountable list of how to be perfect – really, who needs ANY more of that! I find it beyond overwhelming to think I could change that many facets of my life in the single stroke of a late December midnight! But I do believe you can shift your life one thing at a time, thus I’m offering you ONE thing I think can improve your studio practice right now, and yes, it’s free, and doesn’t require you giving up chocolate

The Studio Project List 

Every time I work on a project, at the end of the day, I write down what I was working on and how much time I spent on the various stages of it. I break it into stages because I’m one of the weirdos who loves checking off small steps of larger projects.

I also use this to track the number of things I work on. Sometimes I get to the end of a year and feel like I didn’t accomplish enough, and this list usually sets me straight on that. We often forget the hours we put into making blocks here and there for various things, or don’t count the time we spend sewing things that are not quilts. For instance, I made 26 Chunky Wee Zippy Pouches, 2 Chunky Wee Bags, and a couple dozen blocks, pincushions, etc. in 2017, beyond the 47 quilts I finished!*

Lastly, by tracking these broad numbers as I work I’m better able to estimate the price of custom work, should someone ask me to make them a quilt. Estimating the cost of materials isn’t hard, but we usually have a tough time estimating the amount of labor we might put into something. Because I have this historical data, I can go back as see how many hours I put into any given quilt, which allows me to make a more accurate proposal. Even if you never plan to sell a quilt, knowing this number allows you to see if you actually have the time to make that last minute gift you though of!

Give it a try!

Feel free to use this document as a starting point for creating your own list using the categories that are important to YOUR practice.

And for a New Year’s blast from the past, I wrote this a couple of years ago – and I still wish all these things for you!

For more on tracking the value of what you make, go here.

* With MUCH help from Nancy and Kazumi, my trusty long-arm artists!

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This time, it’s in a Facebook group known as the Worldwide Quilting Group. The administrator, Sandy Stubbs, has been scraping tutorial and pattern content from other sites, stripping it of attribution or links to the original source, and posting it. MANY of our well known designers have had their content stolen, some even had pages of books copied.

The image below is a tutorial that was stolen from Jacquie Gering’s site:

STEALING IS WRONG. We all learned this as wee kiddos, and it’s still the law of the land. Yes, this IS stealing. I know a lot of people think it isn’t because, hey, it’s all free on the internet, right? But no. If you take something that ISN’T yours, it’s stealing, plain and simple. And there is no polite euphemism for thievery. If you stole a car you’d go to jail.

So I imagine that a rationalization could be that it’s not stealing if the content was free at its original source. But here’s the thing… we post free content to be traffic drivers to our sites. WE ARE IN BUSINESS. Being in business means we aim to make a living, to earn money from our talent and skill. It’s a well-known business idea to offer tutorial content for free to bring customers to our site and hopefully get a sale out of them – it’s the loss-leader concept of internet commerce, and it operates on the similar premise of the deeply discounted stuff at a big box store on any given weekend. I know that some people think that sullying the sweet face of crafting with bold business marketing is somehow unsavory, but for heaven’s sake! All who work in quilting are businesswomen and men. We are here to earn a living.

And while our living is in jeopardy every time someone copies a pattern, or steals content like this group above, the people who really lose out are our customers. When we find out our work is stolen we get closer to quitting in disgust, and it certainly makes us pull back on our generosity. When we quit, our customers lose the ability to find great patterns to make. We are the Geese that Lay the Golden Eggs, and when our eggs are stolen, we die an inch at a time. Eventually there will be no more eggs.

EVERY SINGLE ONE of our customers is responsible for protecting the rich content we make. 

Think hard about that.

The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs, illustrated by Milo Winter in a 1919 edition of Aesop’s Fables

Just about every quilt made relies as much on the pattern as it does on the fabric. And I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard “I spent all that money on fabric, I’m not spending another $10 on a pattern too.” And all I can say to that is, “Would you buy all the trimmings for thanksgiving dinner, and then steal the turkey?” No, you wouldn’t. And if you did, you’d be arrested.

So again, please:

• Support us by paying for the things we make that inspire you.
• Don’t steal by copying. (How not to be an accidental content thief)
• Don’t let your friends copy things you’ve paid for.
• Help us by linking back and attributing the source of anything you share so we get an opportunity to market to new eyes.
• Tell us when you see our stuff being stolen.
• Don’t blame us, the victims, when we come after you with legal measures.**

**The above group blamed and attacked the content creators when they were challenged, and have since blocked anyone who brings up that this content is stolen. They have also hidden the group now. This is so very disappointing, and I hope that other members in the group continue to report their crimes outside the group. A classy group would have stayed public, apologized, deleted stolen content, and attributed/linked up free tutorials. 

And to those of you who DO pay for everything… blessings upon you and may your threads be never tangled! Thanks for hanging in with another post about stealing patterns. And yes… I’ll stop writing about theft when it stops happening.

The post Why Stealing Patterns is Like Killing the Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs appeared first on Hunter's Design Studio.

Readers desire a certain amount of intimacy with the lives of their writers. We want to know what’s going on personally, thinking that if we understand a bit of what’s behind the green curtain, we can better relate to the parts we can see. Women like to discover the things we have in common with each other – it helps us build community. And like most writers, I share things with you to help build connections in our relationship. I’m cool with telling you a little about my life, home, and family, and I appreciate the stories you write back to me, too. But with any sharing comes a fear of being shunned for what you say and how you appear, and in business, one has to always consider what the costs of speaking publicly might be.

As a formally educated artist, I’m comfortable with the concept of blending the personal and the political. Arts aside, we make political decisions all the time, most of them consciously motivated. I have friends whose diets are influenced by their thoughts on how meat is raised, or which companies create the toxic chemicals used on our food. We can make these types of decisions about ANYTHING; for instance, I bought recycled printer paper last week… it was a conscious choice. I guess what I’m saying is that I can’t really separate the personal and the political – and nor do I think it’s necessary to do so.

So, what that means here, at Hunter’s Design Studio, is that sometimes I get visibly political. While my life is full of fabric and patterns and friends who need a hand with their blog tours, it’s also full of thoughts and worries about things that are going on in the world. And when it weighs heavily on me, I write about it. It means that I’m going to say/write what I think, and that I’m going to take a stand – I don’t really know how to be any other way. It means I’ll listen to a well-reasoned response even if I don’t agree with it (and I think we ALL need to improve at listening to opposing views), but I’ll delete pure hate and hostility. It means that YOU get to know who you’re doing business with. And as I’ve said before, you are always welcome to not hang out here with me – just scroll by or unfollow; I will bid you adieu and wish you nothing but the best.

I’m taking a stand out in the world for the same things I have taken a stand for within the quilting industry as part of We Are $ew Worth It. I want women to earn as much as their male counterparts, and I want them recognized and respected equally. I want our industry and country to be fair and welcoming to our differences, and inclusive of the broad diversity we encompass. I want opportunities to be available to more than just the people of privilege. I want us to take care of each other in our dealings. I want every person to understand their value to their community, quilting or otherwise. And I really want us to start embracing the shades of gray in everything, rather than standing in rigid absolutes at the opposite poles of any argument.

So many bad things in history have happened because people were afraid to speak up. As women we are cultured to NOT speak up, to NOT rock the boat, to NOT make waves. As a woman business owner, the pressure to be seemly is doubled down with a dose of economic fear: don’t rock the boat or people might not buy your product. And I guess I’ll just have to roll with that because I’m done with being quiet about the things that outrage me, and the time for silence is long gone.

No, I’m not going to be ranting here daily, but you can count on me to have an opinion. And you can definitely count on me to speak up for people who need a champion.

Just wanted you to know that. And now that I’ve said it, maybe I can get back to writing other things too

The post The Personal and the Political appeared first on Hunter's Design Studio.

I’m pretty steamed.

I’ve discovered that someone who bought my Chunky Wee Zippy Pouches pattern has ripped it off, obviously believing the “just change 5 things or X percent and you’re safe” nonsense.

Whatever the nuts and bolts of copyright law might state about what is in the public domain and what can’t be protected on a pattern for a functional product, it’s just freaking WRONG to plagiarize someone else’s stuff to make money from it.

Look. Most of this industry is made up of nice women, women who often get railroaded by corporate policies that abuse our niceness. We should be looking out for each other, supporting each other, protecting each other. NOT STEALING FROM EACH OTHER. If you have to hide behind the minutiae of copyright law to justify your actions you KNOW you are doing something slimy. So don’t do it. Just DON’T.

If you want to write patterns, then by all means come up with an original idea, and find your way to executing it. When I set out to write this pattern, I hadn’t ever owned nor made any other zipper pouch pattern. I decided I wanted to make a pattern that had a formula for making ANY size you could dream up, and I made a dozen samples getting to that. Yes, I have boxed corners in bags before – there are really only two ways to do it – and I chose the technique that works most accurately for me for the pouch. I didn’t steal anyone’s drawings on how to construct the pouch, I looked at the one in my hand and drew my illustrations from observation. Is it the first ever zippy pouch pattern? Nope. Will it be the last? Nope. Is it all my own work? YES.

Designing is hard work. You have to have your finger on the pulse of the industry to keep current on trends, and at the same time, you need NOT to be looking at too much other stuff or it will pollute your head. For instance, if there is a trend of flying geese going on, by all means design something goose-y with your favorite construction method, but start with a blank slate when you do.

The person who stole my pattern came up with handles to add to it. If you have such an idea, the appropriate way to handle it is like Elizabeth at Occasional Piece did with her modifications to make a mini Sew Together Bag. She wrote her mods in such a way that they did not divulge the content of the original pattern, and then offered it for free on her blog. Bravo. New idea shared, original idea protected. Boom.

If you can’t generate your own ideas yet, you aren’t ready for the prime time arena of the pattern design industry. Despite what might look like overnight successes to an observer, it takes a LOT of work to become decent at this, and even those of us who’ve been at it a while sweat every pattern we attempt. You have to sew a LOT of other stuff to be able to discern and design good construction techniques, and you need to learn expensive software (or hire expensive help) to present your writing and drawings/photos well. What you don’t see is the seventeen tries to get it right before we send it out, nor the anguish that consumes us when, despite our best efforts, an error slips through. You don’t see the teams of unsung testers that help out. You don’t see the mounting scraps of expensive fabric sacrificed to the process. Pattern design involves several learning curves and shortcutting them with plagiarism is not only bad form, it cheats you of the skills you ought acquire to create a long lasting design career.

While I don’t think my plagiarist is an inherently evil or vindictive person*, her willingness to “dabble in pattern design” by dancing on my toes smacks of an ignorance born of casual disregard for what it takes to survive in this industry. She thought she could make a quick buck. While I fully acknowledge that I do this for money, there is no quick buck involved in a carefully crafted pattern. I have somewhere close to 60 hours invested in Chunky Wee Zippy Pouches, from pondering the first idea to sending the first pattern to a distributor, to say nothing of the fabric, fusibles and zippers I ate up along the way. I also write patterns because I care deeply about creating a happy experience for our makers. I want people to enjoy quilting so they do more of it, not give them poorly written crap that wastes their time and their fabric, not to mention makes them want to quit the craft.

While I’m angry that my pattern was poached, I’m even more frustrated with the time this has cost me – time I could have used to design something new to grow my pattern business. I have had to research copyright law, capture screen shots of her website and Facebook pages to support my case, consult my colleagues and legal team, talk to the person that did it (and no, it was no fun to do that), write a Cease and Desist letter, and make a trip to the post office to send it certified. I have had to send pictures of her patterns to my distributors to request that they not purchase them as they are based on mine. I’ve wasted a ton of time trying to get calm about it, and formulating an action plan. I probably could have made a whole new design in the time this has cost – and it’s a loss I’ll never recoup.

In conclusion, I just want to appeal to a higher morality amongst us, regardless of any convoluted points of law. Don’t steal from or undercut your fellow humans. We face enough battles without being attacked by people who should be our peers. Up your game and we all win, truly. #WASWI

Thanks for reading.

* I am choosing not to name this person, nor link to her because I believe that it could turn ugly. I’ve seen and experienced enough nasty internet hate to believe that few people, if any, who receive it, deserve it. I sincerely hope she appreciates that.

The post WASWI – One of My Patterns Has Been Plagiarized appeared first on Hunter's Design Studio.

Everybody loves a bargain. Scoring something on sale is a modern day hunter/gatherer coup of the first order, a proof positive that you are conducting your life with thrifty adult aplomb.

But the push for sale prices is eroding the quilting (and other) industries.

Many chain stores have resorted to constant discounting as a way to keep the sales moving, and what this has done is teach their buyers that the listed price of a thing is a number that only fools without coupons pay. And that even if you’re lacking the coupon or mobile store app, everything will be on sale at some point during the next six weeks if you’re willing to be patient.

This just isn’t sustainable. Putting things on sale is a great way to get some fast income, but it’s always followed by a slow period because your customers already spent their money. Once a store puts everything on sale all the time, it’s close to impossible to go back, and it dooms them to cutting back in other ways to make up the lost income.

The long standing formula for a retail price was one built to pay everyone decently at every tier. If I give you an example using one of my $10 patterns sold through a distributor to a store, the cut goes like this: I get $3.50 (out of which come my material costs), the distributor gets $1.50, and the store gets $5. The store gets the lion’s share because they bear the biggest cost of keeping the lights on and paying talented people to help you, and the highest cost per square foot of their retail space.

Let’s apply this to a chain store like Joann’s. If they are making it possible for you to buy that $10 pattern for $6 with a coupon, they are losing $4 on that sale. How that has manifested at Joann’s is that the stores have devolved to being (under)staffed by mostly part-time people (who get no benefits), who don’t know a voile from a velour, and who are mistreated by the company in ways that not a one of us would voluntarily subject ourselves to if other options were available.

And do we really want to be a part of making that happen?

This perpetual discount model has educated us to believe that a $32 rotary cutter is really a $19 product with the coupon. But if the true price (from one end of the manufacturing process to the store) is $32, then that’s what we should be paying.

The next problem with this is we take the “I want everything on sale” attitude to our local quilt stores. I’ll let you in on a secret… no one wakes up imagining that that the fast way to get rich is to own a quilt store. They work hard for the money. And for the most part, they are staffed with the kind of people that can calculate how much border fabric you need without missing a beat. Good quilt store employees are SKILLED workers, and so they deserve better than minimum wage. And if the store is doing it right, they are getting the latest and greatest for you, and making samples of it to inspire you (even my speediest quilts take me a couple of days each to finish). There is a LOT of love in the labor.

Trust me – I know that quilting is expensive. But I also know that it is, as my dear friend Maddie Kertay at BadAss Quilters’ Society once said to me, a luxury sport. If you want to play it, there is a certain investment in the equipment that goes with the game. You are not going to die if you don’t quilt. While it might be emotionally necessary to your well-being, it isn’t critical like food, or heating, or gas for your car.

No one OWES you the right to quilt, nor to have the materials and tools for cheap. If you want to quilt cheaply, you absolutely can. You can acquire the fabrics at thrift stores and opt for doing it all by hand, dispensing with the need for a machine – or scour the same thrift stores for a lucky machine find. If your income is fixed (and seriously, whose isn’t?) you definitely have decisions to make regarding where you spend your pennies. But just because you want it cheaper doesn’t mean you get to have it cheaper – if that logic were true I’d be demanding my rightful Porsche, and my McMansion with singing woodland creatures to keep it clean for me!

If we, as consumers, don’t start supporting the small businesses, they will disappear (just look at dearth of bookstores). There will be no local quilt shop with the carefully curated fabric selection, nor the sweet woman who works on Wednesdays and knows how to find the exact blue you need. All there will be is a sea of chain stores with limited selection and harried staff who can’t help you beyond pointing down the aisle.

Yes, I know, buying a new rotary blade full price might cost you the equivalent of two frothy coffees instead of one (or three fat quarters instead of two), but consider it an investment in having the best quilting community possible. You want to be a part of that, right? Yes! Because otherwise, we’ll be condemning ourselves to nothing more than chain stores.

At some point each of us needs to step up to invest in the health of our industry. Consider it the quilting version of eating your spinach or whipping up a green smoothie.

It’s in our hands. Let’s go do something about it.

~~

For other reads on this:

• Megan Dougherty’s peek behind the green curtain at Joann’s (read the comments, too)
• Maddie Kertay’s Quilt Shop Confidential series 1, 2 and 3
• Ebony Love’s discussions (1 and 2) on pricing her online class offerings.

The post The High Cost of Discount Pricing appeared first on Hunter's Design Studio.

Yes, it does come down to time and money. As with all work, you are effectively making a trade in hours/materials for cash.

But here’s another factor to think about in the trading of hours: those are hours of YOUR precious time, time that you get to spend only once. If the gig in question will cost you hours with people you care about, or neglecting projects that matter more to you, then the cost of that is in play, too.

Bottom line – don’t get underpaid, but even more so, don’t get underpaid while cheating yourself out of what is most important to YOU. Keeping this in sight will make the decision process easier!

(Image borrowed from here)

The post WASWI – How you use your time appeared first on Hunter's Design Studio.

“What do you say when someone wants you to make them a copy of a pattern without sounding holy than thou?”

First of all, can I just say I don’t care about sounding “holier than thou”. I think a little righteous indignation is a good thing in this instance, because maybe it will change the game.

Instead of “OK, let me copy that for you” being a standard answer, let’s practice a few new ones:

• No. Copying a pattern is stealing.
• No. Copying a pattern is a copyright violation.
• No. Copying a pattern cheats a designer out of the income they deserve.
• No. If it inspires you, you should honor the designer by purchasing it.
• No. You wouldn’t ask me to steal food for you, so please don’t ask me to help steal a pattern.
• No. I don’t copy patterns. Please buy your own.

I know that we nice women prefer not to say NO, but in this case, I think we need to get used to it. Give it a try… it’s pretty empowering!

And Karri – thanks for writing with the question, and linking your copy-happy friends to my WASWI writings! On behalf of my industry, a huge thank you!

The post WASWI – Saying NO (or more Snappy Comebacks) appeared first on Hunter's Design Studio.

We need each other.

Every person, in every role in the quilting industry, whether it’s on the buying side or the selling side, from the CEO to the fledgling sewist, is necessary.

Absolutely necessary.

Every role is important, and without each of them, we ALL fall down. Consider each of us to be legs of a table.

Take out any one leg, and the table falls over:

• The Designers: without the designers to generate all the wonderful ideas that inspire us, there would be little to sell, or buy. No new patterns, no new books, no new fabric designs.
• The Shop Owners and Sellers: without the sellers, we have no place to buy the products we want. There would be no carefully curated stores and charming onlline shops to inspire the customers. No place to go to get help and a half yard of the perfect fabric.
• The Companies and Distributors: without the companies to manufacture and distribute our products, there would be no products for the shops, and thus none for the customers. We need the manufacturers to make our fabric and develop our notions. We need the book and magazine publishers to distribute our books and ideas.
• Customers: without the customers, none of what we make will find a home, or get turned into something beautiful.

Seldom a week goes by that I don’t hear a story of how poorly we take care of each other, or experience it first hand. So I’d like to ask each and every one of you, of us, to step up your game:

• Designers:
  • Make the best thing you can possibly make.
  • Be original (no more deer heads, ok?)
  • Don’t sign contracts that abuse you as it teaches the people who offer them that we are OK with being abused.
  • Go the extra mile to make sure it’s right, and fix it fast when it isn’t.
  • And get back to the people who write to you.
• Shop Owners and Sellers:
  • If you are not in business to delight your customers, it’s perhaps time to re-think your gig.
  • Treat EVERY person as if they are special, because they are.
  • Be proud that you’re on the front line of promoting the love of sewing.
  • If you run your store like an impenetrable clique of those girls from high school, you will alienate the next generation of sewists – and we will ALL suffer for it.
  • Invest in your staff.
  • Help people, and help them get excited about sewing.
• Companies and Distributors:
  • Figure out how to make what you make in a way that supports your people, the industry, and the planet.
  • Offer contracts that are win-win, in clear language. And then stick to them.
  • And for the love of all that is holy, pay on time. A small business such as mine gets very stressed by your loose interpretation of Net 30 being “we’ll process it the week after it’s due but somehow miss getting it in the mail for another week after that.”
• Customers:
  • Treat your stores and their staff kindly, doubly so if you are asking them to calculate yardage or help you choose fabric.
  • Buy their stuff on non-sale days too.
  • Don’t window shop their products only to buy them on Amazon. If you don’t support them, they won’t be there when you need them.
  • Stop expecting the store to give it to you for free – quilting is a luxury pastime so you should expect to part with money to do it.
  • Don’t copy patterns or books – it’s stealing, and you’re hurting the people that bring you inspiration.

Imagine how great this industry could be if we all stepped up on these points, even just a little. Can you see it in your mind? Good.

Now let’s make it happen.

* Image found here.

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Tipping. The cash kind, not the cow kind!

How do you feel about it? And should it be part of the quilting economy? I would really welcome your thoughts and discussion in the comments.

I ask YOU this question as I was approached at my local guild’s sew-day by another member, who asked me if I thought we should be tipping our long-arm artists.

I had to pause for a moment… my first reactions was one of slight panic. I hoped I hadn’t committed some dreadful faux-pas by not tipping for my most recent long-arm collaboration. But then I thought about it, and my answer is no, I don’t think tipping should be part of this transaction.

My thoughts on tipping, IN GENERAL, are these:

• I would prefer that businesses price their offerings at the true cost, and that’s the cost I see and pay (I feel the same way about sales tax, too)
• Yes, I do tip servers and bartenders. I do this because it’s the custom in the United States. I would rather go with the European model, which is pay the workers well, charge the actual, sustainable price for the meal, and tip only for exceptional service (with the understanding that the basic quality of the service is not predicated on a tip.) The wages for such service positions are ridiculously low here, because the businesses count on us tipping their workers up to a decent wage. There is inherent abuse embedded in this model, and I don’t like it at all. Read here for some hard data about how tipping negatively affects workers.
• Yes, I tip my hairdresser and my pedicurist. Same issue though – I do it because it’s the custom. I would rather have a set price for these services… if I don’t like what they deliver, I just won’t go back (and let’s face it, it’s sometimes hard to tell if you have a good haircut until you wash and dry it yourself!)
• Yes, I have tipped for all my tattoos. Same issue… it’s the custom. Same issue as above… I would rather pay the actual rate and avoid the tip. Because honestly, once the ink is in your skin, a tip isn’t going to change the quality of the work. And if you don’t like the work, you won’t go back.

And my thoughts on tipping, IN THE QUILTING INDUSTRY, are these:

• On my last long-arm project, I asked for a bid on the work, received a quote, and was invoiced according to the quote. And during the work, there was no discussion of needing to change the number due to unforeseen issues. So I paid the bill as originally estimated. I see it as a business arrangement, not a service arrangement.
• Although I suppose you could argue that it’s a service… but then I suppose I could argue that I deliver a service of some sort also. Delivering good patterns is a service, yes? But then should I get tips from my distributors? Should there be a tipping box on Paypal when you buy one of my patterns? Do you tip the quilt-shop worker for cutting your fabric straight? Or should we all agree that you should get a straight cut from a quilt store as a basic tenet of good business? The semantics of this could be argued heavily.
• We, in this industry, are far more likely to be underpaid than overpaid. Many of us don’t claim our worth, nor bill it. I would hate for this industry to start following food service in a system where the wages are artificially low, and need to be brought up by a tip to be considered decent.
• Here’s that link about the abuses in tipping again, in case you avoided it above (although you might not want to watch the Reservoir dogs clip at work!)
• Again, and again, and again, I advocate for pricing the work at its true cost. This is how we educate people as to the value of what we do. And I advocate showing that full cost on an invoice, even when a discount is given.

So in closing… no. I haven’t tipped my long-arm artist, and I doubt I will. But being as she’s a friend, there’s a good chance I’ll take her some chocolate soon

The post WASWI – Should you tip in the quilting industry? appeared first on Hunter's Design Studio.

It’s exciting to see the topic of selling handcrafted items for decent money rise up in the consciousness of our industry. I believe that the more we talk about it, the better it will be for all.

I was sent a recent post from Kate Chiconi, from which I pulled this quote (emphasis mine) regarding getting paid well for a quilt:

But I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no point counting the hours I spend in my enjoyment and expecting a return on investment. All that would achieve is a deep sense of despondency at how poorly I’m rewarded, whereas in fact the reward lies in the process and the pleasure my handwork gives, not the monetary reward. Fortunately, I’m not dependent on my sewing to support myself, unlike some of my forebears!

While I’m glad Kate understands the “despondency” of being low-balled for her work, and I’m thrilled she enjoys her process, I think she is missing the fact that her contemporary peers try to make livings with a needle, too.

For many of us, it’s REALLY tough to place a price on what we do. It engages all sorts of discomfort in our esteem, and often leaves us open to criticism and ridicule for daring to challenge the notion that it’s OK for artists to starve. Our love for what we do is called into question when we monetize it. And for we ladies, there’s an added layer of judgment about being uppity and “not nice” when you try to be business-like.

So we don’t do it. We shrink back when asking for a fair price. We do funky math and discount the cost of the materials because we already owned them (unwilling to point out that to replace them will cost good money.) We weakly defend the idea that you can love something AND make money at it (and why the hell is this only a conversation in the arts? I don’t see bankers struggling with this at all.) And the most corrosive lie we can tell is “I don’t need the money.”

It’s a great one to hide behind… not only does it make you sound fortunate, it colors you as generous and altruistic. You’re doing the would-be buyers a favor by leaving some cash in their wallets.

But while it might help you, and maybe get you a modest sale, it actually hurts all your sew-sisters and -brothers. YOU might not need the money, but I certainly do, and I’m not the only one. If you don’t educate buyers as to a fair price, then the knowledge of what that is will not permeate our art-buying culture. And we all suffer for it.

Even if you don’t need the money, PLEASE charge it. Donate the cash to children’s arts programs or your favorite charity if you need to get it out of your account. If you still don’t want to do that, please AT LEAST give the buyers a detailed invoice showing the depth of the discount they receive. Education is the easiest thing we can do to change this.

Kate ends with this:

We create because we can and because we must. Monetary reward is just a very pleasant fringe benefit…

Pleasure in my process is certainly important. But no one quilts for cash without enjoying their process – it’s just too damned hard. However, we can’t pay the rent in satisfaction, nor should we be expected to. Money isn’t a fringe benefit in the arts, it’s what feeds the family. Just like in other careers.

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