The short answer is yes, but not that much; you may not want to give up your day job. There are reasons for this brief answer. I have shared my philosophy about this before, but I'll say it again. Rarely am I paid to knit an item. On those rare occasions when I am compensated I ask to be reimbursed for the cost of the yarn and not for my time. But that's just me and certainly I am not glutting the market with items.
There are others in the crafting industry not only doing the type of crafting they love, but also trying to make the equivalent to a 9-5 job's salary. It is tough to do says, Brett Bara in an August 22, 2013 Wall Street Journal article. Brett is the author of “Sewing in a Straight Line,” hosts the television series “Knit And Crochet Now” and writes a sewing column for the blog Design Sponge. She says she knows people who have built “pretty successful brands who are scraping by."
The problem is this: raw materials such as yarns or fabrics are expensive, even if they are purchased at a discount store or on sale. But the major problem is being paid a living wage for the amount of time it takes to do a craft. Here's a brief chart about the time investment to knit some of the average types of projects most knitters create:
Even a small project like a pair of socks will average 15 hours to complete. Using the British Columbia's minimum wage of $10.25/hour, that's $153.75 in labour without the expense of $15-$25 for a hank of yarn. Who do you know willing to pay that much for a pair of socks? Probably, no one. The U.S. federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour bringing the labour costs to $108.75 sans the yarn. Still too expensive and we're talking about the minimum wage here.
A crafter/knitter is competing with hundreds of thousands of us who spend the time for the fun of it and would never consider asking for more than the cost of raw material. Throw in all the elder care homes that receive donated yarn and have knitters galore happy to knit for free and the competition gets very tough.
“If you think you’re going to quit your job and sell five dollar patterns or craft you made on Etsy, you’re going to be disappointed,” said Patty Lyons in the Wall Street Journal article. She left a 22-year career as a Broadway stage manager to become a knitting instructor and, later, studio director for Lion Brand Yarn Company’s Manhattan store. “But if you come into it with expectation that, ‘I want to do the thing that I love which I’d be doing anyway, and get some income from it,’ then it [could] be a beautiful thing.’’
I knit for the joy it brings me and that joy is precious, something very special. Playing with the old Mastercard advertisement: needles $15, yarn $20, spending time doing something you truly love to do--Priceless. And in my case priceless means just that--it comes with no price.
There are others in the crafting industry not only doing the type of crafting they love, but also trying to make the equivalent to a 9-5 job's salary. It is tough to do says, Brett Bara in an August 22, 2013 Wall Street Journal article. Brett is the author of “Sewing in a Straight Line,” hosts the television series “Knit And Crochet Now” and writes a sewing column for the blog Design Sponge. She says she knows people who have built “pretty successful brands who are scraping by."
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| Brett Bara in her NYC apartment/craft room |
The problem is this: raw materials such as yarns or fabrics are expensive, even if they are purchased at a discount store or on sale. But the major problem is being paid a living wage for the amount of time it takes to do a craft. Here's a brief chart about the time investment to knit some of the average types of projects most knitters create:
Even a small project like a pair of socks will average 15 hours to complete. Using the British Columbia's minimum wage of $10.25/hour, that's $153.75 in labour without the expense of $15-$25 for a hank of yarn. Who do you know willing to pay that much for a pair of socks? Probably, no one. The U.S. federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour bringing the labour costs to $108.75 sans the yarn. Still too expensive and we're talking about the minimum wage here.
A crafter/knitter is competing with hundreds of thousands of us who spend the time for the fun of it and would never consider asking for more than the cost of raw material. Throw in all the elder care homes that receive donated yarn and have knitters galore happy to knit for free and the competition gets very tough.
“If you think you’re going to quit your job and sell five dollar patterns or craft you made on Etsy, you’re going to be disappointed,” said Patty Lyons in the Wall Street Journal article. She left a 22-year career as a Broadway stage manager to become a knitting instructor and, later, studio director for Lion Brand Yarn Company’s Manhattan store. “But if you come into it with expectation that, ‘I want to do the thing that I love which I’d be doing anyway, and get some income from it,’ then it [could] be a beautiful thing.’’
I knit for the joy it brings me and that joy is precious, something very special. Playing with the old Mastercard advertisement: needles $15, yarn $20, spending time doing something you truly love to do--Priceless. And in my case priceless means just that--it comes with no price.
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