When you make crafts, people are always saying to you "Oh you should sell those!" but when you ask them how much they'd pay, their offers are usually less than the cost of materials.
Case in point - I made a shopping bag out of old carrier bags cut into strips and knitted together. And as usual people said "You should sell those. I'd buy one". It's true the materials cost me nothing, but it took me about ten hours to cut the strips and knit it together. At minimum wage, that's £53.50 just for the labour. So I offered to sell them the bag for that price. They all declined.
I think a skilled craftsperson is worth a lot more than minimum wage. And if I was making crafts as a business I'd also have to pay tax, bank fees, public liability insurance and all kinds of other expenses. If I seriously wanted to make hand-made recycled shopping bags as a profitable business I probably couldn't afford do it for less than about £100 per bag. But people only pay that much for fashionable designer items, not recycled home-made chic.
When you buy the materials it comes to even more. The yarn for a hand-made woollen sweater costs in the region of £50, and they take more than ten hours to knit so the labour costs are astronomical. The materials for a hand-made quilt are many times more than that but shhh, don't tell Ed, my husband. The labour for a quilt is also measured in many tens of hours.
That's why I don't make crafts to sell. I don't even make them as gifts because I know people often think "Hand made gift. Cheapskate. Second-rate". I only make gifts for people who appreciate what they're worth, usually other craftspeople.
Knitting with a kitten in the house is tricky. When he's not trying to catch the ends of my knitting needles, he's playing with the balls of yarn.
Sam is learning to knit. He wanted to knit a teddy bear for Eleanor, but I've persuaded him to start with squares. I'll sew them up into a bean bag when he's made two of them. He's trying very hard and making great progress. I do a couple of rows when he's not looking so it grows a bit faster for him. It's hard to be patient when you're six.
Since the kids helped dyeing yarn with Kool Aid and making our own knitting needles, they're keen to try knitting. The book Kids Knitting recommended starting kids with a French knitting spool. It's easier than knitting with needles but it shows them how knitting works, by hooking loops of thread through the loops on the row beneath.
Here's another of the projects from Kids Knitting by Melanie Falick. I'd never thought of making my own knitting needles before, but it's very simple and fun. They're fun to use as well.
I dyed some wool using Kool-Aid (an American soft drink). I followed the instructions in a book called Kids Knitting by Melanie Falick (we Melanies are a darned talented bunch aren't we?). I won't reproduce her directions because they're copyright. If you want to dye yarn with Kool Aid without buying the book there are several sets of instructions on the Internet, for example at Knitty.com. Kool-Aid is not an everyday item in the UK and I had to buy some from KoolaidUK.com. I wonder if you can dye yarn with Ribena?
When you make crafts, people are always saying to you "Oh you should sell those!" but when you ask them how much they'd pay, their offers are usually less than the cost of materials.
