Knitters be like “I’m going to tie a knot so elaborate you can wear it as a fashion accessory.”
Everyone else be like “Yes, but will you do it for me for free?”
In my limited personal experience knitting* is viewed very differently to other crafts.
No one has ever looked at one of my cross stitch or embroidery pieces and asked if they can have it, or if I’ll make them one just like that for free.
But knitting. Knitting is different. It’s seen as being so simple and, presumably, worthless that people feel free to pass unsolicited comment on your work as well as ask if they can have one. You name a price for doing so and they look at you like you should be able to magic free, decent quality, wool out of your arse so how very dare you suggest charging them for a scarf, hat, sweater, whatever (at this point you don’t bother mentioning that labour would have cost extra)
The one thing that knitting and stitching do have in common is the amount of people who will say: “Oh, I could never do that. It looks so complicated.”
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BUT this isn’t just my experience of it.
My sister used to earn money making clothes when she was between ‘proper’ jobs. She never had any issues with payment or pricing with a sewn garment. She’d give them a price, explain how much the various fabrics, notions and labour cost and that was it. She only ever had problems with people wanting knitted items. They’d haggle over the cost, whine about how long it it would take her to make (knitting time was always given in advance), complain about the quality of the cheap ass yarn they’d chosen, etc, etc.
As time passed she just gave up offering to knit items for money.
Why has knitting become such a devalued skill for anyone who isn’t a big name knitwear designer?
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*I assume crochet gets much the same reaction but I don’t crochet so I can’t comment on that.
I wonder if it’s so devalued because so many people grew up with a family member who knit as a hobby. That and machine knitting making knitted items so much cheaper.
I wore this shawl to my grandmother’s funeral:
Yes, her funeral. My grandmother, who taught me to knit, was in awe of this shawl. It is beaded lace and took me hours upon hours to complete. That is a queen sized bed it was being blocked on. If I were to add up the hours and calculate federal minimum wage (which is much less than the minimum wage here in MA), people just might choke
One of my aunts remarked how lovely it was, and asked if I would ever consider making them for sale
Knowing she was moderately well-off, not rich but comfortably middle / upper-middlr class, I decided to ask what she would pay for it
Keep in mind, hand knit beaded lace, covers a queen sized bed, probably 48-60 hours of work (maybe more; i never counted), took me months and months because it was done in my spare time
Guess what she suggested
Go on, guess
Got that number?
Ok, good
She suggested the grand and exorbitant price ooooofffffff……
$50.00
I laughed in her face and told her the materials cost that much (ok, maybe I exaggerated a bit. I shop sales almost religiously XD)
The cluelessness of some people just amazes me.
I tell people now that my knitting is like sex, if I like you and want to you don’t have to pay me, but if neither applies you couldn’t pay me enough.
I’ve got to remember that last one
Don’t ask crafters and artists to make you things for free. Just don’t. If they like you and you are lucky, you may get a gift. If you are not getting a gift and you like what they make, just fucking buy it, for the price they are asking. That’s how it works.
People have a stupid notion that, if you are enjoying doing something, then it’s NOT WORK, therefore it should be free. UGH.
I had an experience like @arirashkae. I crochet and a woman at the laundry whom I’m friendly with asked me if I could make her daughter an afghan like the one I was washing. It’s a throw that covers the top of a full-size bed with a complicated ripple pattern. Now, I do a lot of crochet and I could have whipped that up in three days, so I wanted to be fair. I totaled up the yarn in my head and doubled it for the labor. $250. Her eyebrows flew up into her hair and she actually said, “you shouldn’t try to rip people off when you’re just doing a bit of crochet.” I told her that it must be pretty good for “a bit of crochet” if she wanted to buy it instead of making it herself.
People who don’t do craft regard it as no better than the crap pipe cleaner decorations that they do for Hallowe’en which is why you just can’t sell craft.
