Common Charge to Stitch a Project

>I have no idea what to charge him.
>Is there a going rate for stitchers? How do you calculate the price?

I spoke with one of the owners of my favorite stitching shop, and she
said the going rate is .5 cents per stitch.  So, find out how many
stitches are in the piece (you can estimate this; if it's an 80x100
piece with about 70% covered with stitches, you could estimate that
there are 5600 stitches in the piece, so you would charge $28.)

Personally, I think this sounds like slave labor.  I imagine I stitch
about 150 stitches per hour (depending on complexity of design, of
course),
which means that at this rate I'm being paid $.75 per hour.  I don't know
whether I'd *ever* stitch for money at that rate.

From: MARTHA UNDERWOOD

First off, decide how much per hour you want to make. Minimum wage is
a good start. (let's call that $5 for computational ease)

Now, figure out how many stitches you work in a minute. Then divide
the number of stitches in the whole piece, by how many you can make in
a minute. This gives a rough estimate of how many minutes you will
take. Then divide by 60 for hours and multiply by wage per hour.

Now, this is an unrealistic number, it's too LOW. It does not take
into account: special fibers, special stitches, extremely fine work,
or extremely course work, mistakes, partial stitches, etc.

What I do is take my stitches per minute, divide by 2, and then do the
math. Adding in anywhere from 1% to 10% more time for every special
thing.

For a Teresa Wenzler, for example, I'd add 10% to the total time just
for the blended floss, and another 10% for the back stitching, and
probably 5% for partial stitches.

Coming out with a simple piece taking 100 hours is NOT unrealistic,
they really DO take that long, usually stitchers tend to get those 100
hours in bits and pieces.

And at Minimum wage, that piece just became $500.

Now, if this is for a friend, one whom you really like. Charging a
flat fee is perfectly fine too. Something like $25-$50 for a piece.
For friends, I say, go with what your heart tells you.

From: SUSAN PROFIT

Hi. Be aware that this may fall apart at 25+ stitches to the inch.
Some of the miniatures I do would sell for a whopping $2.50 at that
rate for 1350 stitches. Now -that's- slave labor! At a nickel a stitch
that comes out to $67.50, which I'm never going to see in this lifetime
for a simple hybird tea rosebud. The gallery owner and I set the price
depending on what the market will bear, of which I get a whole 60%. SO
although a piece may be priced at $40 (-I'd- never pay it) I will only
get $24.
It turns out that I get paid $0.0178 per stitch.

From: LINDA SHING

Hi! perhaps you should charge what most dressmakers charge - the price of
the materi...ummm - kit. If you feel that is not appropriate, maybe you
could judge the time needed - by the difficulty involved, the size of the
piece, the no. of color changes, etc., & set an hourly price agreed upon
by both of you. In this case, you should give him an estimate, & try to
keep to it as much as possible. I sometimes do custom knitting for
people, & depending on the pattern, these are the two methods of
rate-setting I use. A straightforward knitted pattern with 1 or 2 colors
will go quickly, so the cost of the wool is O.K. A complicated or
multicolored pattern is set by hour, costs more, but is more unique &
individual to the purchaser, so is usually O.K. too. You get what you pay
for. Will you be framing this as well? If so, charge seperately, after he
buys all the necessary supplies.

From: AMELIA J. SCOTT-PINER

        Most of the stitchers for the frame shops seem to stitch a
piece for about $1 per square inch of stitchery based on 14-count.
At least, that's what a few that I have met have said.

approximate a 14-count type size.  End of August.  Hmmm.  How
fast do you stitch and how much time do you have to put into it?
Remember, if he has it framed at a shop they'll need three weeks
to do it, most usually.  That means you'd have about a month to finish
it.  Also, he's paying for the stitching, but not the framing.
I used to think that I stitched about 500-600 stitches per hour.
I got that figure by calculating one cross-stitch every 5 seconds
for an hour = 720 stitches/hour with 100 or so left out for misc.
threading, chart mapping, etc.  In reality, I usually stitch about
200 stitches per hour.  A little quicker if I'm doing an area of
the cloth that I don't have to count.  I'm not positive why there's
such a discrepancy.  But, if you're doing 200 stitches per hour
(1 sq inch of 14-count = 196 stitches), you'll only make about
$1/hour.  Plus, if you work full time, these hours are going to
be taken most likely after you come home from work.  It sometimes
takes the fun out of a hobby when you turn it into a job.
        Just a quick dose of reality.  I've made gifts for friends
in cross-stitch (never charged though).  I never set a deadline
for myself, because it takes me years sometimes to finish these
pieces.  (I do other things, too and I work on about 15 projects
at any given time)  I'm lazy, though.  :-)