celticdragonfly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
celticdragonfly) wrote2006-01-19 10:03 am
celticdragonfly) wrote2006-01-19 10:03 am
Entry tags:
Why I don't want to knit for sale
I frequently get people who look at my work and want to encourage me to try to turn it into a business or work for sale. And generally people don't seem to get why I don't want to. I appreciate the compliment, that they think my work is that good. But they just don't get the logistics of it. Someone who doesn't do fiber arts doesn't understand the amount of time invested into the work.
So I finally have an example. I've done a couple of lace bags as gifts - this pattern
http://pics.livejournal.com/celticdragonfly/pic/00088yd6/g6
and have been asked to do some more sorta on commission. And was asked things like how long does it take me. Trouble is, I don't sit down and do it all uninterrupted, I have to do it around kids and life and stuff in bits and pieces.
Due to the simple shape of this project, I was actually able to have Karl time me on a small part of it last night, and extrapolate to the total time for the project. It came out to 7.5 hours. Now, that's assuming I didn't have any mistakes and have to frog it out and restart or tink back and redo some rows. I'm not perfect. I'm pretty good, but not perfect. So figure more like 8 hours of work. That's a lot of my time. And that's not even taking materials cost into account - another thing that people tend to underestimate.
And, when I'm working on that kind of project, it's frustrating that I have to stick with it, I can't go work on another project or something for ME. And yes, work can be like that, and if I was getting paid reasonable rates per hour then it would be worth dealing with it. But if not, why?
So I finally have an example. I've done a couple of lace bags as gifts - this pattern
http://pics.livejournal.com/celticdragonfly/pic/00088yd6/g6
and have been asked to do some more sorta on commission. And was asked things like how long does it take me. Trouble is, I don't sit down and do it all uninterrupted, I have to do it around kids and life and stuff in bits and pieces.
Due to the simple shape of this project, I was actually able to have Karl time me on a small part of it last night, and extrapolate to the total time for the project. It came out to 7.5 hours. Now, that's assuming I didn't have any mistakes and have to frog it out and restart or tink back and redo some rows. I'm not perfect. I'm pretty good, but not perfect. So figure more like 8 hours of work. That's a lot of my time. And that's not even taking materials cost into account - another thing that people tend to underestimate.
And, when I'm working on that kind of project, it's frustrating that I have to stick with it, I can't go work on another project or something for ME. And yes, work can be like that, and if I was getting paid reasonable rates per hour then it would be worth dealing with it. But if not, why?
no subject
And I just laugh. The border alone on that thing took me 35-40 hours. Even paying myself minimum wage, I'd have to sell that shawl for well over a thousand dollars to make it worth my time -- and I can't imagine someone paying more than a couple hundred at best. If money's the goal, it'd make more sense for me to take a second job flipping burgers.
Now, if someone wanted to buy something that I'd made just for the fun of working with the yarn or trying out the pattern, and if the price they offered covered the cost of materials and wasn't a sheer insult to the complexity of the project, I could see selling my work. But knitting with the primary goal of selling it -- nope.