The quilt took 3,000 hours to stitch.
By Alys Francis, ninemsn
A Melbourne woman has sold a patchwork quilt for $70,000 to the daughter of art collector Joseph Brown.
Robyne Melia said the 2m-square quilt took 3,000 hours to stitch by hand using patches of material cut from her grandmother's vintage clothes.
Melia told ninemsn that she had never heard of a quilt being sold at a similar price.
But the record price is less than the $80,000 Melia initially put on the quilt when she completed it in 1996, with the idea that she didn't want to sell it.
"I first displayed it at a show in 1996, just after it was finished, and the manager insisted that I name a price," Melia wrote on her blog.
"Of course, fresh off the needle, I had no intention of ever selling it, but I arrived at a price that, with very modest wages for the day, reflected the time involved."
Melia told ninemsn that she wanted people at the show to see the price tag and understand the commitment and effort that had gone into making the quilt.
"I guess he thought you'd never get that price," Melia told ninemsn.
The buyer, Lynnette Brown, first became interested in the quilt around five years ago when Melia was teaching her needlework and showed it to her as an example of the different skills she could learn.
"She was just besotted with it from then," Melia said.
"She said there and then she was going to buy it one day."
Brown finally agreed to Millia's price of $70,000 and the sale was settled in October this year.
"I really did put a lot of effort into it and have always been an advocate for asking a realistic price for our [craft artists'] work," Millia said on her blog.
"We know how much we put in and how many generations of women (usually women) have made their homes beautiful and warm and developed amazing art and skill, without recognition from the wider community. We deserve it."
But it is only recently that the art world has grown to recognize craft, Milia said.
"No-one in the art world knew anything about how big and huge the craft industry was and saw it all as doileys and knitted coat-hangers," Milia said.
Milia said young people have fuelled the rise in craft's popularity, seen in online communities like Etsy and Australian magazineFrankie, which launched in 2004.
"It used to be that all the old ladies knit, but you don’t see that anymore, it's only the young ones who knit because they want to," she said.
"All of the crafts they're not lost ... they're not dying it's just not necessary and people do it because they want to."
Milia is not planning on retiring her needles anytime soon, but said her next project is to put together a book of needlework patterns and styles.
Lynnette Brown is the daughter of the late Joseph Brown who donated a major part of his collection of Australian art to the National Gallery of Victoria in 2004.
The Joseph Brown Collection, featuring more than 150 painting from all the major art periods, is on display at the Ian Potter Centre for Australian art at Federation Square.
