On-Demand Education – Value of Quilts: Panel Discussion

by The MQG

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How do you price quilts? What factors do you take into consideration when pricing a quilt? Is there a formula? Do you truly take into account all hours put into the project? We asked members a variety of these questions in a survey and then brought together three panelists to discuss the answers. Join Sam Hunter, Chawne Kimber, and Lucy Engels as they share their perspective on the value of quilts.

About the Contributor

About Sam Hunter: Sam Hunter (she/her) is an award-winning fiber artist and quilt pattern designer who started sewing when she was 7 and hasn’t really stopped since. She holds a BA in Sculpture and an MFA in Fiber Art, and blends this classic training with her great sense of play in creating art. 

Sam is a lifelong advocate for fair pay and wages for those in the craft industry. She believes that sewing machines are mighty power tools, and those that command them should be well compensated.

About Chawne Kimber: Chawne Kimber is an African American mathematician and quilter known for expressing her political activism in her quilts. She is an academic dean at a university in a mid-Atlantic state.

Kimber comes from a family of cotton farmers and quilters in Alabama, and cotton was central in the lives of the women of her family – from picking to ginning to sewing, with quilting emerging as the main mode of self-expression available. Patchwork was sewn from worn denim and calico clothing and layered with the discarded cottonseed and fluff from the gin houses for insulation to make quilts.

Inspired by the quilts made by her ancestors in the late 1800s, she interprets traditional forms in an improvisational style using vibrant modern colors of commercially available American-farmed, processed, and woven cotton. Some of the designs are geometric romps that emphasize the complex forms of negative space that naturally arise, while others utilize unusually small scaling to exaggerate shapes and tonal sequences. Using the quilt medium to respond to current race related social justice issues, she also makes minimal two-tone appliquéd self-portraits in a street art style.

Chawne’s work has frequently been displayed at QuiltCon. Several of her pieces are now found in museums around the country including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the International Quilt Museum, and the Michigan State University Museum.

About Lucy Engels: Lucy Engels is an award winning quiltmaker, pattern designer, and artist based in Edinburgh, Scotland. With a background in fine art Lucy studied printmaking, traversing into quilt making in 2013. Her work is process driven and focuses on colour relationships. Lucy creates functional quilts, quilt patterns, and wall quilts. Always experimenting and pushing to try new techniques and processes whilst championing others to make their quilts their own and to not just follow the pattern. Lucy regularly exhibits quilts locally and internationally.