Unless you have been living under a rock for the past week you have seen Abby Glassenburg’s post on all the money that is NOT filtering down to fabric designers from the large fabric houses.  Add that to Sam Hunter’s writing on the We are $ew Worth It movement, stir the pot and watch the revolution boil up into a full flung movement that has everyday quilters asking how they can make a difference.

Now contrast this with an interaction I watched grow via Facebook last evening.  To set the scene, a small business announced on FB that they were starting a new monthly club selling kits for an adorable monthly project with the price of $47 a month. To be clear they were OFFERING this, not demanding, swindling or tricking anyone into anything.

They made a simple offer which included all of the yardgood and precut fabric, notions, patterns and instructions each month, mailed to you so it was delivered with well enough time to complete the project for use the next month.

What came next blew me away!

Now I will say that I watched this post with interest since I am a shop owner, and the project kit is similar to items I could or might offer to my customers, so watching the waves of negative responses to what I saw as a reasonable cost for a cute project kit kept me hooked and watching the comments for a good part of the evening – a digital form of rubber-necking at an accident, I suppose. But it also made my “spidey-senses” tingle, as this being yet another piece of the larger puzzle of how consumers play into the fact that designers as a whole as paid so poorly. I get it that this jump is not as obvious as some, but just hold tight and I will see if I can explain.

It went down like this ~ scissors-and-cut-line

The offering in question was a kit to make a 12-month series of pillow covers for a “bench pillow.”  For those who don’t know what a bench pillow is, it is a 3-foot long and 1.5-foot high pillow, much like a body pillow, but in this case used to put on a sofa or front hall bench. In this case, they are kits to then make slipcovers to celebrate each month. The price was $47 a month, including priority shipping. Most of the commenters raked the offering company over the coals for a price that was deemed “outrageous,” “excessive,” “gouging,” and many other superlatives too numerous and negative to mention.

But let’s look at the cost shall we?  $47 a month.

First off, postage is going to be $6 for priority shipping, not counting any packaging going into putting the kits together.

The retail cost of the pattern is $10, so basic math get us $16 of the price before we even get into the fabric and notions.

The pillow is rather large and they send both the front and back fabrics for the pillow, so there is 1 yard right there, and at common quilt store prices that is $11.50 at least.  So now we we are at $27.50.

Next up is the complete selection of pre-fused, laser-cut design elements for each part of the design. On average, these patterns use 10 fabrics and 20-40 pieces to make up the whimsical designs. How much is this worth? Well, the company being lambasted has sucked up invested quite a bit upfront to make these kits. Let’s consider the cost of the fabric, shipping it to the laser cutting people, paying the charge to get it cut, having it shipped back, and then dividing and repacking all the elements. So not only is this supply cost, but man-hours as well. This part of the package is full-on convenience that allows those with busy lives to make a cute project easily each month without the hours of prep time this project would normally take.  Let’s be conservative and say that this is $15 of each package cost. That has us at $42.50.

Add to that the included notions, advertising cost, and other ancillary costs of production, and I can bet you that these far exceed the measly $5 we have left until we hit the offering cost of $47, and yet people felt entitled to rip these people a new rectal orifice for the fact that they had the balls to price their offering at a fair market price that enabled them to take the risk, buy the supplies, pay their workers and make some sort of profit (since, HELLO, that is what it is.. a business!).

You’re right HOW DARE THEY!  ahem ……. are you getting it now? Hell, I did not even go into some of the other costs I can think of that have bearing… the rent, heat, light and water of  where they work, the cost of even having employees, (paying fair wages, taxes, insurance and more).

Could this project be made for cheaper? SURE IT COULD, and they are not stopping you. They are just offering a fast way to make a cute project doable during all the crazy that is our lives these days. They are doing it to make a living, no different than you or me, and the fact that people choose to throw a fuck fit about it ties back into why designers are paid so little. (See I am getting there!)

The Upshot~ scissors-and-cut-line

It seems that as a nation, we have decided that everything should be available to us at a discount. That somehow, by the very fact that we breathe, we automatically deserve somewhere between 1o-30% off retail pricing every day, and it is just not true. Retail pricing is there for a reason. The difference between the wholesale (read that as RISK) I pay and the price I charge has to pay for everything else that it takes for me to be able to have it to sell it. If I and others like me were not taking the risk (and it is a HUGE freaking ri$k, don’t think anything else), then no one would have a source of fabric to fondle, thread to ogle, and notions to noodle, or much of anything else, for that matter!

So, the truth is that each time a consumer “refuses to pay retail,” they put each of us in a difficult and dangerous position. For each person who walks out of my store, or any store, because I don’t have a sale section, or it is not deeply discounted enough for their liking (yeah, totally true), then that is less product I can buy from those fabric housse for which the “sale only shoppers” have so little respect, only buying such items at a discount. That leaves designers only able to ask for and get so much money for their work. It is an ugly cycle that has a whole hell of a lot of misunderstanding about how business works and who is making money where. (Sure, there are a lot of other reasons for another day.)

How you can help~scissors-and-cut-line

Quilting and sewing is a luxury sport, no doubt about it. No one is doing this to put clothes on their body or to stay warm at night, since we all know that clothing and quilts can be found for much cheaper in any big-box store in the nation (yeah, lots of wrong there, but there is only so deep I can dive right now). I am not saying that when your local or ethically run online store is having a sale, you should not giggle with glee, whip out your debit card, and go wild. What I am saying is to shop where you love and support the designers you adore by purchasing as close to local as you can and from a shop that shares your desire to make this industry better with each transaction. In short, vote with your dollars, knowing that how you use them makes a difference greater than your fabric stash.

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