Monday, February 25, 2008
The Hanks Question of the Week
Many of us feel an intense pressure when crafting for pay, or under a deadline. Or maybe that's just me...? Has this ever happened to you? What was the situation? Did everything turn out fine? Or is crafting for pay/under a deadline something that you would, under no circumstances, consider doing?
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6 comments:
I used to make items to sell, but I long ago decided that having any sort of deadline or pressure to finish something defeats the purpose of knitting for me, which is to reduce stress.
If I don't finish a gift by Christmas, it becomes next year's Christmas gift...
LOL, it is not just you!
The first time that I encountered this was for my mom. Except she wasn't really paying me... she had sent me a pattern, the yarn for the pattern and some cash so I could make her a scarf for her birthday. :) One thing I can say about her is that she goes all the way when doing things.
The next time was a "goods in kind" thing. A friend asked if I could make a Harry Potter scarf for her. She bribed me with the first season of a show she wanted me to see (and knew I'd love). And gave me a whole year to finish it. :) That went well since she had planned in advance. I think I got it done in two months.
One of my co-workers recently asked me to make some wristwarmers with matching scarf and hat. ... I got the wristwarmers done. Tried the scarf and bad things happened. Haven't picked that up since, but I gave her the wristwarmers.
Am thinking that I won't do knitting for pay ever again. Not worth it. For a friend, that is something different. But someone with whom I don't normally hang? Nah.
Deadline knitting has been zapping the fun out of knitting for me. The sad part is it's all my own doing.
A good friend announced her pregnancy about 4 months ago - plenty of time for a nice blanket. A couple of months later, another good friend announced she's due at the same time. So my "plenty of time" was reduced by half.
Again - this is all MY OWN doing. No one asked for a blanket. Or anything at all, for that matter. But I wanted to do it.
Now I'm on the homestretch of Blanket #2, just 1 week before the babies are due. It's been fun, and it's been a great learning experience, but I like to jump from project to project too much. Knitting blankets for the past four months has made me dream about socks and such.
I'd do it again, but only my own deadline. Maybe a baby toy when they're 12 mos old or something.
I did knit a baby blanket last spring. The baby came several weeks early, which gave me an excuse to be late with the blanket ... it was past the due date by the time I finished it, but at least he's still a baby...
I've made several things for craft sales, co-ops, and commissions. Things seem to go best if the items are small and I don't have to work under a deadline. And if there is a deadline, it's going to be crochet rather than knit, because I'm a bajillion times faster at crochet.
Things usually turn out just fine, and I try to build in the "reknit" time for any mistakes I know I will be making.
The hardest part for me is deciding how much to charge. Materials costs, those are easy to figure out, but how do you charge for those 10 hours that you know you are going to put into a pair of small felted (commissioned) shoe clips? Which is what keeps me from even thinking about doing more crafting for pay.
I know how you feel! Knitting is my part-time job and it can be stressful. I try to find a good balance between custom orders and in-stock orders. The more in-stock orders and *less* custom orders the more peaceful my knitting life is!
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