Why I don't want to knit for sale

[celticdragonfly]

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?

Comments

[jfsnyder.livejournal.com]

Hm, I try to *imagine* having enough spare time to do a sweater in two weeks.... well, maybe a todder sized one.

Well, it helps to be making the sweater on size 10 needles...and to have the pattern completely memorized (having made it at least 5 times in the last year in different colors) AND to make an 8 hour road trip on one of the weekends. :-)

I can generally get one hour of uninterupted knitting in on weeknights, after the kids go to bed. Sometimes I can get more knitting in while they are playing/doing homework after dinner.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Gah. Size 10? Not for me. I always have to go up at least a size, because I knit tight, but I also like to work with thinner yarns. For worsted I'd probably be working on maybe size 7? Most of the time I'm working with size 2.5.

I do have a project where I'm working in size 10.5 (and I should get back to it) but that's for a lacy cotton throw, not a sweater.