Grrr, Wanting Something for Nothing & No Appreciation for Fine Hand Quilting....A Rare Speckledhen

[mom'sfolly]

There is a local craft store here that sells crafts made my seniors...they will hand quilt a pieced quilt, for something like $150. You are charging too little for your absolutely gorgeous work. Anyone who doesn't appreciate it, and realize what it is work, isn't worth making a quilt for.

It always sort of amazes me what people are willing to pay for, and what they will not pay for. At several craft fairs my booth has been across from the kettle corn booth. People will pay $10 for a bag of popcorn which will be gone in an hour, but won't pay $5 for handmade soap or $35 for a one of a kind birdfeeder I just don't get it..

 

[speckledhen]

There is a local craft store here that sells crafts made my seniors...they will hand quilt a pieced quilt, for something like $150. You are charging too little for your absolutely gorgeous work. Anyone who doesn't appreciate it, and realize what it is work, isn't worth making a quilt for.

It always sort of amazes me what people are willing to pay for, and what they will not pay for. At several craft fairs my booth has been across from the kettle corn booth. People will pay $10 for a bag of popcorn which will be gone in an hour, but won't pay $5 for handmade soap or $35 for a one of a kind birdfeeder I just don't get it..

Not logical at all, is it? Boggles the mind.

Thank you for the compliment!

 

[shell3]

i used to make hand made soap, all organic and really pretty. then people would say "£3.50 thats quite expensive for soap" how offensive thats cheap! i made about 60p proffit a bar and it took 8 hours to cure and longer to make plus organic ingedients!

 

[speckledhen]

My friend Ladyhawk (Cetawin on BYC) makes the most wonderful soaps, worth every penny. golden puppy here also make wonderful soaps. They are so mild and smell scrumptious, no bizarro ingredients like the commercial crud. I can use those on my not-so-young face without drying it out and with much less need for lotions and creams afterward. I'm very spoiled now!

 

[shell3]

thats the beauty of handmade. you know whats in it. i used different ingredients for different skin types i made one for my sister who suffers from adult acne and it was very appreciated. much more so than any shop bought gift set would have been x

 

[1MrsMagoo]

There is a local craft store here that sells crafts made my seniors...they will hand quilt a pieced quilt, for something like $150. You are charging too little for your absolutely gorgeous work. Anyone who doesn't appreciate it, and realize what it is work, isn't worth making a quilt for.

It always sort of amazes me what people are willing to pay for, and what they will not pay for. At several craft fairs my booth has been across from the kettle corn booth. People will pay $10 for a bag of popcorn which will be gone in an hour, but won't pay $5 for handmade soap or $35 for a one of a kind birdfeeder I just don't get it..

x2 what mom's folly said. Some folks seem to have an odd sense of what is valuable and what is not. Your work is stunning and honestly, you aren't charging enough (I know that piece is worth far more than $90 to me).

You'd think in this day and age, when most of the skills that most women used to have like sewing, quilting, crochet and tatting have been lost to the masses, that they would appreciate the hand made items much more than the generic mass produced stuff from Walmart. Sadly, it seems like they want more stuff, not better stuff: Never mind that the stitching on the cheap quilt will start coming loose the minute they begin using it. I have two baby quilts and a full sized quilt my great grandmother made for me when I was younger. Although her work was nowhere near the quality of yours, the quilts are still in excellent shape despite years of use (44 years and 3 babies on one baby quilt).

People have gotten so used to cheap, imported junk that they can run off to the store and buy on a whim. Sadly, in your case, it was probably the person's ego talking (perhaps she was offended that she wasn't asked to make the runner). A lot of people don't realize that to make something nice by hand, it not only takes a considerable amount of time and good quality materials, but usually years of acquired skill and a collection of special machinery and or tools (needles, threads, patterns).

I can completely understand the aggravation you are feeling over the comments in more ways than one. I used to sell my painted goods at craft shows, most of which were juried to keep out the imported junk. Out of every 10 people who came through at least 4 would say, oh, I can do that...or that is way too expensive: Those tended to be other crafters who were simply shopping for ideas.
At one show I had a lady take the nail file on her finger nail clippers and scrape the surface of a heavy expensive hand painted 20 gallon crock to prove I was "using decals". She said that she painted and their was no way that was painted on that crock. My mother, who did shows with me at the time, had to physically restrain me since I was literally going to kill this "lady". Their was no security at the show and short of manhandling her to make her wait on the local police, their was nothing I could do: I had to keep the crock since the repainted area would have been readily apparent had I tried to repair it.

Here is an old photo of it before it was damaged.

 

[speckledhen]

O. M. G., I think I would have ripped every hair out of her head! At least, I would have had the attitude of "you broke it, you bought it, lady". She owed it to you to buy it after damaging it. Seriously, what is wrong with people????! You do beautiful work.

 

[shell3]

i agree thats truely awful and jelousy if you ask me. thats beautiful painting x

 

[1MrsMagoo]

O. M. G., I think I would have ripped every hair out of her head! At least, I would have had the attitude of "you broke it, you bought it, lady". She owed it to you to buy it after damaging it. Seriously, what is wrong with people????! You do beautiful work.

Thanks. If my mom hadn't restrained me, which was quite a job since she is 5'7" and I am 6'0", then I probably would have killed her. We argued with her and some of the surrounding craft people came to my defense. In the end, it wasn't worth going to jail over it.

 

[speckledhen]

She should have been the one going to jail.