2025 Income Report

I’ve published a quilting income report for several years now, and am here again with my 2025 summary! Here are the previous years — 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 — and, as always, a bit of context up front:

• Quilting is not the primary source of income for our family; both my husband and I have full-time job in the aerospace field.
• Because my quilting income is supplemental, I definitely have different priorities and make different decisions than those for whom quilting is a full-time job.
• That said, I firmly believe in being fairly compensated for my time and effort and rarely work for free.
• The income breakdown below is based on gross income.
• Percentages are rounded.

Let’s dive in!

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Income

In 2025, my gross income increased by 5.5%. After a couple years of decreases from my all-time high in 2022, I had a slight increase this year and grossed nearly $28,000. However, for the first time, a couple of the category percentages changed rather significantly!

Sales – 32% (Last year: 40%)

My gross sales income came from six sources: my Shopify store, my Etsy shop, wholesale orders, distributor orders, royalty payments (for one specific pattern), and in-person sales at lectures/workshops. “Sales” includes patterns, postcard supply kits, finished items, and courses.

Interestingly, I was dropped(?) by Checker Distributors towards the end of last year; some of my patterns are still on their site, but I was notified that they would not be reordering unless/until demand increases. I had been receiving orders from them several times each year, but they were admittedly for small quantities, and I guess it did not cross their threshold. While I enjoyed working with a distributor, it was not a big source of sales, so it is what it is.

I do have a couple patterns that are (or will be) carried by Moda/United Notions because they are featured by Ruby Star Society.

I released 1 pattern last year and now have 18 published patterns available in PDF and 14 available in print (plus a few more smaller patterns/tutorials). Looking ahead, I hope to add 3-4 more patterns to my catalog in 2026, and potentially run a block of the month in 2027. I also have 2 on-demand courses that I hope to have online by summer.

Tech Editing – 54% (Last year: 28%)
Ghostwriting & Design – 0% (Last year: 4%)

Tech editing represented MORE THAN HALF of my income. This is a huge increase, and it’s not just a funny effect of percentages — the gross dollars I earned from tech editing in 2025 was fully double what I earned in 2024.

Why? At first I wasn’t sure, but then I realized that 2025 was the first year where my editing queue was consistently full almost every single week, and for a good portion of the year, I was booking at least 2-3 weeks in advance. I continued to work with previous clients but I also picked up several new clients via referrals, and from a tech editor friend who scaled back her own workload/client base. I also began editing on a freelance basis for C&T Publishing which has proved to be a good experience and relationship thus far.

I limit ghostwriting to a small, curated group of clients, and did only one ghostwriting project this year (for which I will be paid in 2026).

Teaching – 6% (Last year: 26%)

My teaching took a nose dive. I did 3 virtual lectures, plus received a payment for an educational video I recorded several years ago that pays me for reuse. Interestingly, I already have 8 guild engagements — plus QuiltCon — scheduled for 2026, so last year is looking like an anomaly? Who knows! I continue to enjoy teaching and hope to be able to sustain something like 8-10 engagements per year. If I would be a good fit for your guild or organization, I’d love to chat with you!

Publications & Collaborations – 4% (Last year: 0%)

I had no publications last year; this category reflects a payment for a collaboration I did with Spoonflower in December 2024.

Miscellaneous – 4% (Last year: 2%)

This captures several other small categories, such as the award I unexpectedly received for one of my quilts at AQS Grand Rapids last summer!

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Expenses

My expenses in 2025 totaled over $8,000, which is roughly the same as last year. The breakdown below DOES NOT include federal income tax. (And note that I live in Texas, which does not have state income tax.)

Fees & Commissions – 13% (Last year: 15%)

There are three primary sources of fees: Paypal (which I use for invoicing clients), Shopify (payment processing fees), and Etsy (listing and sales fees). Ultimately, these kind of fees are just a cost of doing business.

Printing & Pattern Expenses – 11% (Last year: 1%)

This category primarily captures the cost for all of my print patterns and the cost of having new patterns tech edited. I did reprints of a couple patterns, and prints of the one pattern I released (Quarter Moon).

Shipping – 12% (Last year: 13%)

This includes shipping patterns and supply kits, as well as the annual cost of my PO box.

Software – 18% (Last year: 20%)

This includes the monthly cost of the Adobe software suite (Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop), domain and web hosting for this site, my Shopify store, and my current experiment with ManyChat (though perhaps I should recategorized that one as marketing).

Marketing – 9% (Last year: 6%)

The biggest expense in this category is my newsletter service (Flodesk) but it also includes promo materials like stickers for QuiltCon and business cards. I had to reorder both business cards and the “thank you” cards I include with physical orders for the first time in a couple years.

Fabric & Making Expenses – 4% (Last year: 14%)

Most self-explanatory! This includes fabric, thread, and pantographs to use with my longarm. Can you tell I didn’t do a lot of new sewing last year? Whomp whomp.

Education & Training – 9% (Last year: 30%)

Last year I joined a professional membership (Longarm League) that accounted for a big one-time expense (and therefore big drop this year). This category includes online training courses and guild memberships. I also put my QuiltCon and Quilt Festival registration fees in this category, since I do consider those to be partly educational events!

Miscellaneous Expenses – 24% (Last year: 1%)

I’m grouping a few things in this category for the purposes of this blog post, although they are better categorized in my accounting! For the first time, I did consider many of my QuiltCon expenses to be business-related, so those are marked in a “travel” category that for this blog post is lumped in here. As a board member and industry professional, I do consider annual attendance to be somewhat required. (That said, it certainly helps that it’s also very fun!)

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So that’s my 2025 breakdown! It’s always good to look back and think about how I have earned and spent business money this year, along with what is and isn’t working. I’ve also updated my year-to-year income grown chart below:

I am still very much in the midst of a life stage where time constraints are very, very real! I had more hours available to commit to my quilting business in the past than I do now. And with my family life and full-time job, I don’t see myself magically finding more time. And since I start a new engineering job next week, if anything, I am anticipating that I may have LESS time for a while as I work to get up to speed on my new team and projects. So, for 2026, I intend to very consciously scale back where I can. I am still defining exactly what that looks like (and it’s more of a behind-the-scenes effort), but “work smarter, not harder” definitely applies.

As I said last year: if you are reading this and trying to draw any parallels to your own creative business numbers, I think it’s important for you — and me!! — to remember that quilting is a small business for me that 1) I greatly enjoy, and 2) I absolutely need to scale to fit around the other important things in my life.

Your business and your business goals are yours and yours alone to set and pursue. Good luck and best wishes to all of us for the rest of 2026!