By Abby Glassenberg
All charts and graphs in this post were provided by Premier Needle Arts.
Every year for the past ten years Premier Needle Arts has conducted The Quilter’s Survey. The company works in cooperation with various brands in the quilting industry in order to conduct a survey to help them understand the quilting market, assess its size and growth potential, and collect data about the typical quilter and her consumer behavior. (See our summary of the 2019 survey here.) Premier Needle Arts shared the results of the survey at Virtual Quilt Market last week. (Download the summary here.)
The survey takes between 45-60 minutes to complete. This year, Premier Needle Arts sent the survey to randomized portions of its brand’s email lists (including Handi Quilter, Connecting Threads, and Superior Threads) as well as randomized portions of several of TN Marketing’s brand’s lists (Craftsy, National Sewing Circle, and National Quilters Circle). In total, over 1 million quilters received the survey in February 2021 and approximately 30,000 filled it out. 89% of respondents were in North America.
Demographic data, including race and ethnicity, were optional questions and CEO Mark Hyland says many quilters chose to skip this section. Of the demographic data the survey did collect, Hyland reports that there were no significant differences between groups.
According to the survey, as well as other data Premier Needle Arts accessed to understand the market, there are now 85 million “active creatives” in North America, meaning people who have done at least one creative project in the last year. Crafts generate $35 billion in annual sales. There are currently 10-12 million quilters and the quilting market is expected to approach $5 billion by 2026-2027. In 2020 there was a more than 12% increase in the number of new quilters. The quilting market is expected to grow to $5 billion by 2026.
The data indicates that the average quilter is a retired woman who is approximately 65 years old with a household income of $60,000 or more 17.5% have full-time jobs. Average quilters have been quilting for over 10 years and spend more than six hours each week working on quilting projects. The average quilter owns four sewing machines. Fewer than 30% of quilters pay someone else to quilt their quilts, preferring instead to do the quilting themselves.
The average quilter is now online every single day. They are doing research and shopping online 30% more today than they did in 2018, and YouTube is now the first place they go to learn new techniques (versus websites and blogs which was #1 last year).
New quilters report that sewing is their main hobby besides quilting, indicating that sewing is a gateway to quilting. There are now 33 million active sewists, a more than 10% increase over last year.
The majority of quilters prefer to shop for fabric, thread, and notions at independent quilt shops. The number of quilters shopping online for fabric, notions, and other quilting supplies continues to increase year-over-year, though, but ecommerce growth for supplies is greater than for fabric and notions.
63% of quilters still buy and read magazines, but overall magazine subscriptions have decreased by 15% over the last five years.
14% of quilters report that they attended at least one virtual show this year, but overall their experiences with online quilting events were subpar and 80% say they wouldn’t attend one again next year.
April 7, 2021: We have updated this post to remove the female pronouns from descriptions of the average quilter.
I’m very concerned that the Craft Industry Alliance is assuming that all quilters are “she’s” and not acknowledging that everyone can and do quilt.
Hi Sue, This article is presenting data from the Quilting Trends survey. A goal of the survey was to understand the average quilter. According to the data presented, the average quilter is a retired woman in her 60s with a household income of $60,000. That is why or this section is written with female pronouns.
Hi Abby – Thanks for this article, which is very helpful. I understand your explanation but was also troubled by the use of “she” and wonder if you couldn’t in the future use the term “average quilter” instead. “She” referring to a retired woman in her 60s with income of $60,000, does reinforce a stereotype that is not the full picture of the quilting community. I understand that those are the statistics presented but it would be helpful to include a paragraph on the diversity of the quilting community. Our customers are male, female and non-binary, ranging from 8-early 80s, from modest incomes to wealthy, from Sweden to Israel to Australia.
Thank you for this feedback. I will edit the post. Please note that the graphics were provided to us from Premier Needle Arts with gendered language.
Get over yourself. These are industry statistics, Not a social commentary.
Good day I think that it’s not a big deal even the Bible use she as a main description and means both sexes
Absolutely agree. Because the industry is already predominately female and older, folks who aren’t those things ALREADY feel excluded. Reinforcing this isn’t helping.
Thank you for this feedback. I will edit the post. Please note that the graphics were provided to us from Premier Needlearts.
The article doesn’t say that it’s only “she” and not “anyone else” that quilts; what it does say is that the average quilter is a woman in her 60’s. They carried this profile and told the story from this profile’s perspective. If you read it as them writing from this profile perspective, it makes sense. I don’t see it as “reinforcing a stereotype”; there is a -difference between a stereotype (an overly-generalized belief) and a fact (the aggregated results of their survey). The fact – based on this article – is that the average quilter is a woman in her 60’s. That’s not saying there aren’t others who quilt (because obviously there are), but this article is based on trends, and the factual data shows what that trend is. Diversity is a good thing, inclusion is a good thing, but the focus of this article wasn’t on that – it was on summarized survey data showing trends within the industry.
Thank you Jen for making that distinction, and Abby, I’d ask that you not change edit the post, as it was presented accurately. The survey provides a lot of very good insight into the quilting industry and helps us to understand its customer base and areas where we may be able to reach or focus attention.
As a male quilter and pattern designer, I feel the word “she” is fully appropriate since that covers at least 95% of my customers, followers, and fellow quilt guild members. Quilting is an overwhelmingly female pursuit. Why not use the pronoun that represents the vast majority of the population you are representing?
I agree. Quibbling over pronouns instead of looking at the meat of the survey is a bit controlling. Unnecessary in view of the focus of the article. When I read articles for woodworking I’m not in a twist over gender so I think people carry this issue way too far.
thanks for having a level head and realizing this article wasn’t trying to stereotype.
Exactly! Very well said! 👏👏👏
I’d be interested to know if the percentage of male quilters has gone up
I would, too. That data was not made available in this presentation.
The fact is the average quilter is female and I doubt that will change in your lifetime. To have an average you need a high and low so the average relates to all genders in the quilting world. Simple reasoning. No need to take the negative side when in fact it never was there to begin with.
Hi Abby,
Thank you very much for sharing this survey.
Very interesting.
Have a great day,
Fabien from BOHIN France
I broke my arm in July. The surgeon applied hardware and cadaver bones. I wrote in my donor thank you letter that I was learning free motion quilting. The donor’s widow wrote back that she and her husband quilted a blanket for an in-law quilt, when they were first married. Imagine, a quilter’s bones to another quilter!
That’s a pretty amazing story, Marilyn!
I poked around a ascertained that this is a different survey from the triennial Quilting in America survey. It would be interesting to compare the two questionnaires and the resulting data — surely the results are similar, but what are the variations?
I don’t know if The Quilting in America survey was conducted this year. I do know that the Quilting in America survey is a much smaller sample size (approximately 2,000 people vs the 30,000 surveyed here).
Hi, its always great to get this kind of feedback. My only wish is it would be nice to have a snippet of what is happening internationally as I note from the above stats that 89% of respondents were from North America which means 11% were not. Not a big group I agree but for those subscribers not from North America, it would be interesting to understand if the trends seen in North America are the same outside of it. My suspicion is it won’t be that much different but helpful particularly when we’re developing and/or renewing business plans and needing market analysis for it to help support potentially drive our individual business focus.
I agree. Unfortunately, this data was not included in the presentation so we don’t have access to it.
I would take the results of where people shop with a grain of salt – the questions were incredibly flawed. It wasn’t at all clear what option one should choose if one shops at ONLINE independent quilt shops. The independent quilt shops option didn’t say whether it was strictly bricks and mortar or included online shops and the “online” option didn’t say whether it was strictly huge online retailers or included online independent quilt shops. Both questions seemed to apply.
I buy close to 100% of my fabric and notions from online independent quilt shops and I had no idea which option to pick. I pretty much randomly chose between the two options that seemed to apply.
I would actually take all of the results with a grain of salt. The survey as a whole didn’t seem like it was professionally done (i.e., by someone experienced in conducting surveys like this to generate useful data). Poorly written questions were a significant issue. It’s also not clear to me how they determined percentages of “total population” given that they surveyed only quilters. Unless they asked a representative sample of the population (which would include a substantial number of non-quilters) there is no way they can accurately have those numbers. They also seem to have provided no confidence interval (“the results are accurate within plus or minus 4 percent points, 19 times out of 20” or similar), and anyone who has ever taken a course in statistics knows that’s a hallmark of a poorly done survey. Either they are hiding this information or they don’t have it – either way it likely means the survey methodology was questionable at best. It should be information that is easy to find regardless of what specific results they want to keep confidential.
Thank you, Abby! Two comments- 1- OMG you guys, please stop shooting the messenger re pronouns, Abby was quoting statistics as expressed by the survey …2- wow amazing stat re YouTube being the primary source of education given the average age of audience- important info for folks like me that have not yet yet jumped on the video bandwagon. Sigh, more cameras required in my studio…
Thank you for the interesting research. Could anyone advise, who are the main independent craft store distributors in the US?
We distribute our magazines to the chain stores but it’s hard to find a route into the independents.
Many thanks
.
Hi Rebecca, We have member resource that’s The Big List of Craft Industry Distributors: https://craftindustryalliance.org/distributors-for-your-craft-project/
YEP – enough with the pronouns – and with fighting over whether it’s a Christmas Party……. If there is ONE MALE QUILTER, why not make him feel welcome by using broader language. If there is one JEWISH member, why not just call it a Holiday Party instead of a Christmas Party ???? I don’t think one ever loses by being kind and welcoming.