The Dedicated Quilter

This may be old news but I recently came across a survey conducted by Quilting in AmericaTM that was conducted in 2010.  The first study was in 1994 and there have been subsequent ones with the most recent that I could see being 2010. Surveys aren't always conclusive but I found the results of this one very interesting.

According to the survey, quilters in America spent $3.58 billion dollars a year, which is a lot of money!  There are 21.3 million quilters in the US over the age of 18 and 14% of households had at least 1 active quilter.   Here's the most interesting part for me, dedicated quilters (those whose households spend more than $600 a year on quilting goods) account for 6.2% of quilters and are responsible for 69% of the spend.  That's nearly $2.5 billion.  Wow!

So I asked myself how much do I spend?  Well I have a small stash, 6 shoe box plastic boxes of  Fat Quarters, a tub of backing fabric, 13 rolls of thread, 2 cutting mats, a 45 and a 60mm rotary cutter with spare blades, 6 rulers, 2 boxes of pins and safety pins for basting, 2 scisssors and unfortunately 3 seam rippers that I use a lot!
   

I bought my first charm pack for my very first quilt in December 2011 and since that date I have spent $3052 on quilt supplies, thats nearly $133 dollars a month. Yikes!  And my stash is not huge!

Ok,  I have made presents for people that otherwise I would have bought and spent money on and I did get paid for one quilt but that's still a fair bit of dosh.  So does that make me a dedicated quilter?

Well the report asked who the dedicated quilter is and came up with the following:

• Female - Yup
• 62 years old - not for a long while yet!
• Well educated  (72% attended college)  - Yes
• Affluent - ahmm nope!
• Quilting for an average of 16 years - not yet either!
• Has a dedicated sewing room (85%) - nope, sew at the kitchen table
• On average has $8542 worth of quilting tools and supplies - definitely no to this one!
• On average owns $3677 worth of fabric - not there yet thank God!
• Owns an average of 2.7 sewing machines  - have 2! (Husqvarna Viking H600e and Lidl Lervia basic)
• Bought an average of 4.4 quilting books in the past year - Yup (I bought Tula Pink "100 Modern Blocks", Sarah Fielke's "Handmade with Love", Lynnette Anderson "It's Quilting Cats & Dogs", Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr " Quilts Made Modern " and "Transparency Quilts" and Camille Roskelly's "Simply Retro")
• Subscribe to or read 4.4 quilt magazines a month - nope (not every month!)
• Averages 2 hour a week on quilting websites - yes
• Averages 40 hours a week sewing - nope, I have a full time job and sew on some evenings and weekends

After going through this exercise I would consider myself an enthusiast in the beginner/intermediate category who has to use her fabric on hand before buying another single thing!  What do you think?  Interesting or a load of old cabbage?