Recently, I was reading through
the multitude of knitting related e-mails that
are delivered from message boards to my mailbox
on a daily basis and was stopped short by one
inquiry. "What would you charge a person
for a hand knit [you-fill-in the-blank]?"
This is a question that goes
back to the beginning of our craft. Once
upon a time many everyday items were knit by hand. Most
were done in the home by family members. Women
[and sometimes men] would knit such utilitarian
what-have-yous as fishing nets, blankets and clothing:
undergarments, socks, baby clothing and sweaters.
As time went on and certain individuals developed
exceptional skills for a particular style or type
of knitted item, they started parlaying these
skills into cottage industries. A well-known example
is the Fair Isle sweater made
popular by Scots knitters.
As knitters, we are proud and
strive for recognition of our handcrafted items.
Some of us may dream of a fantasy world that would
allow us to quit our jobs, and take our hobby
of knitting to the next level - knitting for dollars.
I, too, am not immune from that dream. For
me it started six months into my knitting experience,
shortly after I knew that I had found my lifelong
love - sock knitting.
There I was, in the dentist's
waiting room, lost in the clacking of my needles
and the emerging neat little stitches going round
and round. Suddenly, I was aware of a face
floating only a few inches from mine. I
looked up and found it was attached to the body
of an attractive and well-dressed woman. "Are
you making SOCKS!?" she asked as if she couldn't
quite believe it were possible. Overwhelmed,
I managed a nod and an affirmative grunt.
She pawed my precious Koigu and stated, "I
MUST have a pair!" I learned she was
the office manager for my dentist's office.
She went on to tell me how much she loved hand-knit
items and how her mother-in-law ["God rest
her soul"] kept her in hand-knit maternity
sweaters when she had her first child. But,
NEVER, she said, had she ever owned hand knit
SOCKS. Her mother-in-law had refused, telling
her that they were just too difficult to do. She
beamed at me as if she had just met Albert Einstein
reincarnated. Then came the question: "How
much would you charge for a pair?"
I pooh-poohed the idea, telling
her that the yarn alone was way more costly than
any sane person would pay for a pair of socks. But
upon leaving the dentist's office I was accosted
again. "Really, I'm serious." she said. "I
would pay you for a pair of hand knit socks, whatever
the cost. Please, work out a fair price, and give
me a call." She thrust her business
card into my clammy palm and sent me on my way.
I was hard to deal with for
the rest of the day, walking on air. I could sit
[in my comfy chair with my comfy cat] knitting
socks all day without stopping except to check
my mailbox and pick out only the most interesting
and well-paying of sock orders. I told everyone:
my boss, my husband, my goldfish, about how a
woman had offered to pay me ANY PRICE for an item
created by my own two little hands.
That evening, buoyed by pride
and greed, and a previously unknown interest in
marketing and sales, I took to my computer. With
calculator at my side, I started adding up the
numbers. Feeling charitable, I decided to
pay myself minimum wage for each hour of knitting
and only to charge what I paid for the yarn, no
markup. I'll start raising the price when I get
famous, I thought. Well, my smile soon faded when
my calculations passed the $100 mark. I couldn't,
in good conscience, ever charge anyone that much
money for a pair of socks! With the wind gone
from my sails, I swallowed my pride and declined
her offer.
There's a reason why hand knitting
isn't a huge industry any longer: competition. With
the industrial revolution came the machines and
manufacturing processes that could spit out socks
and sweaters in a fraction of the time it takes
us to knit them by hand. This mass production
can create oodles of sweaters in the same amount
of time it would take a hand knitter to create
just one, without having to pay a single person
for the process. Result: cheaper knitted items.
The market for hand knitting
has dwindled, but it's still there, lurking in
the recesses of exclusive shops and the lustful
heart of the woman sitting next to you on the
bus. I may never get rich knitting, but if you
have more stick-to-itiveness than I, and still
think you can make a living knitting for cash,
here are some things to think about:
