“Will You Knit Me A………? I’ll Pay You To Do It”

Firstly, I just realised I’ve been blogging in earnest for about a year now and I’ve managed to gather 93 lovely followers. I would love to make it 100 followers over the next couple of days to mark the one year anniversary so if you have any yarn loving friends maybe you could encourage them to have a look at my blog with the hope they may want to follow it 🙂

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ll realise that I have been churning out quite a few completed garments. Not any jumpers (sweaters) or very fancy garments but mainly lots of socks, scarves, hats and baby garments.

I show all my completed knitting to my friends and family and am sometimes met with the same response “You should be selling your knitted goods”.

I guess if you’re a knitter you’ll understand how frustrating this comment can be as non-knitters don’t really understand that it’s just not a matter of charging for the yarn but it can also take hours to finish one item.

Some yarn is quite expensive but I purchase it because I love the colourway or the content (alpaca, silk etc).

I’ll give you an example. One of my friends has on a number of occasions said to me “Can you knit me some socks; I’ll pay you”. Well let’s dissect that statement shall we? Firstly, the cost of the sock yarn is generally around $10 – $25 so I’ll use $20 as a rough amount. Plus I’ll estimate roughly five hours to complete each sock which makes ten hours labour in total. AU$20 an hour is quite a cheap rate to work for. Let’s add that all up now: 10 x $20 = $200 for labour plus $20 for the yarn = $220.

Next time I’m asked that same question, should I just reply “Sure I’ll knit you a pair of socks. It’ll cost you $220. Do you still want them?”. What do you think the answer will be?

I also struck the problem at one stage where I was continually challenged about how much I was knitting and how could I possibly need that many pairs of socks etc. It became a bit too much after a while as I didn’t feel quite comfortable about knitting as I felt I was doing the wrong thing.

I knit because I enjoy it immensely; it gives me great satisfaction to see the finished product; it relaxes me (even if I have to frog some rows!!); I love working with natural fibres; I love smelling my wool (as I do my books!); I love collecting beautiful wool and adding to my stash; I love meeting with my Knit and Knatter friends (I have met some wonderful new friends through knitting); I love blogging about my completed garments. I’m not hurting anyone am I? I’m not offending anyone am I?

What does it really matter how many socks I’ve made for myself. I don’t criticise others for what they spend on their free time.

Please don’t ask me to knit a whatever and then say “I’ll pay you”. You have no idea how much it could really cost you and I don’t want to offend you by saying that pair of socks will cost $220. I knit for pleasure and don’t like to feel pressured that I have to knit something as someone is waiting for it.

I have made garments for friends and given them as presents. Their responses have made it all worthwhile.

I have so many patterns and yarns to experiment with that I hardly have enough time to knit what I want to make.

Once I’m retired and have more time to myself I’ll also have more time to knit so that’s the time I may knit commissioned garments.

Do you have any similar stories?

Have a fantastic weekend. I’m off to my Knit and Knatter gathering tomorrow….can’t wait!

Melanie