I knit and crochet for my mental health. There was a point where when I was a naive teenager I did try to make money off the hobby, but it made me utterly despise the hobby as a whole and turned something I used to relieve stress into a new stressor. I don’t sell my projects, and never will. I gift projects to those close to me, as well as on very rare occasion I let people buy me yarn in exchange for a project for them in my spare time. As well on occasion making projects to donate or give to be used in charity raffles.
I don’t know if it’s the psychological aspect of money or what, but it just ruins it for me and creates a stress I just can’t deal with. I also feel with my current approach it makes my projects even more priceless since you literally can’t put a price tag on it. If you get a gift from me, it means I feel that I know you well enough to cherish it and enjoy it. It’s why I love to knit for my grandma.
I also knit/crochet as a very industrious hobby. When people tell me that I should sell my items, I reply that they couldn’t afford my items. It took me 100+ hours to make this sweater and the yarn alone cost me over $200. This sweater is in the ballpark of $1500 in value. You can’t afford me.
I feel you, I’m a knitter as well and the amount of people who have suggested I start selling…they don’t understand the real value of hand-made items because they’ve been used to buying mass-produced crap from the other side of the world.
Ran into this issue with my daughter when she was trying to sell her stuff at local business and craft fairs. Some of her stuffed animals would take her 5 to 10 hours to make, and would price them accordingly, with some of her largest items being close to $200us.
People would get sticker shock, and even after explaining that not only did she spend a full work days amount of time crocheting the item, she would also hand spin a lot of the yarn she used as well, they never seemed to realize the actual value of her stuff. It seemed to usually be people of my generation and older that had the most issues. She sold most of her stuffies to people in their teens and twenties, and a surprising amount of yarn to really old ladies.
I knit and crochet for my mental health. There was a point where when I was a naive teenager I did try to make money off the hobby, but it made me utterly despise the hobby as a whole and turned something I used to relieve stress into a new stressor. I don’t sell my projects, and never will. I gift projects to those close to me, as well as on very rare occasion I let people buy me yarn in exchange for a project for them in my spare time. As well on occasion making projects to donate or give to be used in charity raffles.
I don’t know if it’s the psychological aspect of money or what, but it just ruins it for me and creates a stress I just can’t deal with. I also feel with my current approach it makes my projects even more priceless since you literally can’t put a price tag on it. If you get a gift from me, it means I feel that I know you well enough to cherish it and enjoy it. It’s why I love to knit for my grandma.
I also knit/crochet as a very industrious hobby. When people tell me that I should sell my items, I reply that they couldn’t afford my items. It took me 100+ hours to make this sweater and the yarn alone cost me over $200. This sweater is in the ballpark of $1500 in value. You can’t afford me.
I feel you, I’m a knitter as well and the amount of people who have suggested I start selling…they don’t understand the real value of hand-made items because they’ve been used to buying mass-produced crap from the other side of the world.
Ran into this issue with my daughter when she was trying to sell her stuff at local business and craft fairs. Some of her stuffed animals would take her 5 to 10 hours to make, and would price them accordingly, with some of her largest items being close to $200us.
People would get sticker shock, and even after explaining that not only did she spend a full work days amount of time crocheting the item, she would also hand spin a lot of the yarn she used as well, they never seemed to realize the actual value of her stuff. It seemed to usually be people of my generation and older that had the most issues. She sold most of her stuffies to people in their teens and twenties, and a surprising amount of yarn to really old ladies.