"No, you cannot pay me to make you a blanket"

[MissMillie]

People always seem surprised when I turn down money to crochet them a blanket.

I'm flattered that they like my work.

I had more than 100 hour into the last blanket I made. Even if I thought my time were as worthless as $3/hr, I'd have to charge $300 or more for the blanket.

I have yet to find anyone willing to pay that kind of money.

I make blanket for people that I care about--and I give them as gifts.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear MissMillie...

You have a generous, loving heart.

[Arkansas Granny]

2. Like you, I give most of my crocheted and knitted items away.

I've had people offer me money to make something, but they only consider the cost of the materials, not the time it takes to produce something unique. It truly is a labor of love.

[SheilaT]

3. You can always tell when someone has

never done any of these crafts, because they simply have not a clue the amount of time involved.

They also do not understand how much the yarn might cost. I have a particular scarf I like to make with four skeins of Noro yarn, which runs about $15/skein. So that's sixty bucks right there, and then there's the many hours involved in the crocheting.

Which is exactly why most of us give away stuff.

[Howler]

4. same here miss mille!

Only its with my tie dye and jewelry making.

[kcass1954]

5. Quilter here. I smile and bat my eyelashes, and sweetly say,

Oh honey, you can't afford me!

Fabric and materials at least $75-100. Plus a minimum of 30-40 hours of my time. For a baby quilt.

I make and give away quilts to special people in my life.

[KarenS]

8. me too,,,,

Quilter here.

Family, friends and charities receive my quilts.

If someone really wants to pay me ~ I just say go to the fabric store and buy me a yard or two of fabric ~ any color any theme =) I'm a scrap quilter so anything goes!!

[Ednahilda]

6. I make bobbin lace.

Depending on the complexity of the pattern, it can take a half-hour or more to make an inch (I'm not exactly speeding, though.) Only somebody with deep pockets could afford to pay even minimum wage for a length of lace.

I make lace hankies as wedding day gifts to the brides in my family; very, very special people get pillowcase sets with handmade lace. Mostly I make lace to keep my mind sharp.

[KC]

7. Same here

I've just given them as gifts for family
members or a few close friends.
They really have no clue what all goes into
crocheting, knitting or quilting.

[My Good Babushka]

9. You could direct them to Etsy

There are lots of people there happy to make some bucks.

[Warpy]

11. Or nursing homes

A lot of women who are there for health issues and not mental issues knit full time to keep from going crazy from the boredom.

They favor pastel acrylic, OK for baby blankets but not much else.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

14. What I have found is

from experience, people who gave my grandmother hand crocheted or hand knitted blankets might have been in a nursing home, or just elderly. The blankets are never really big enough for an adult in bed.

Rule 1: They throw all sorts of bright and dark colors together with no seeming thought to color theory. Have no idea if they have any idea about what colors go together or not.

Rule 2: They must be pretty fierce, because everything is knit tightly with no stretch. Serious tension.
Example: I had a couple of pair of those simple knitted booties with two sides(left and right) knit as trapezoids, then stitched together. Couldn't get them on my feet because they were knit so tightly. And I have bony little narrow feet that I inherited from dad. Dress shoes used to have to be Italian, because nobody else made triple As.

[Warpy]

10. I add up the hours it takes and tell them what my hourly pay was at my last job

before I retired and that my time is worth at least that much. That shuts them up fast.

Most civilians don't have a clue what sort of hours go into even a simple scarf.

If they're teachable, I teach them how to knit or crochet. If they are full of excuses, I send them to Etsy.

Knitting is like sex, I only do it for people I love and nobody has ever come up with enough to tempt me to do it for money.

[SheilaT]

12. I actually have a scarf I crochet

out of the Lion's Brand Homespun yarn. One skein makes a six foot long scarf which I either leave straight or crochet the ends together with the twist that makes it a Mobius scarf. I sell them for $20. It takes about two hours of uninterrupted crocheting to make one, and I actually make them at work sometimes. I never pay more than five dollars for the skein of yarn, so it's a reasonable return on my time. People who buy them often ask if I make hats to go with. Nope. The skein would make two hats (I think, I've never bothered to make one) and there would be unruly amounts of yarn leftover.

I have honestly considered crocheting a vast number of those scarves and getting a kiosk at the mall some Christmas season. However, if I did that I'd charge $25 to make up for the cost of renting the kiosk and to cover the sales tax amount.

[pipi_k]

13. Same here, and...

like nearly everyone has pointed out, people who don't knit/crochet or do other crafts have no idea of the time factor involved.


The most I'll do is allow the person to buy the yarn (if s/he asks me specifically to make something), especially if it's expensive, since we're on fixed incomes here.


But as far as the time factor goes, I have a particularly unamusing (to me) tale of the Booties From Hell which is going to get its own thread in a bit.