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The joys of being self-employed

The joy this week was under-pricing. Never good, but I guess you have to do it to learn from your mistakes. I always forget just how long it takes to knit things. HOURS!!! Maybe I am an especially slow knitter or maybe I am just good at underestimating the time it takes to get things done. I had an order in from Etsy to make this Security Camera - I normally only sell the patterns, so when someone asked could I do it I thought - ah, that'll take four hours, easy, and made up a listing with the price reflecting this...so when it got to six hours working on it and I wasn't quite finished I thought oh well...another one to chalk up.
I don't know how people make money knitting. (Unless I am just really slow!) It is so rare to find someone willing to pay a price that reflects an hourly wage for what is actually skilled work. I actually read something about pricing once that said you should add up the costs and wages (time) it takes to make something, multiply this by two to get your wholesale price, and multiply by two again to get your sale price.
If I was to take the six and a half hours it took me to make the camera and work that out at a reasonable rate - say 15 euro an hour, and follow that recommendation, that would add up to a sale price of 400 euro. Ha! That's so ridiculous it's hilarious. This is why I don't knit as my business.
In happier news I have sent a new knitting pattern off to some lovely testers for checking and then will be able to release it very soon. I'm excited about this one. Its been sitting around since before christmas in a pile of random scraps of paper with scribbled hieroglyphics all over them which I managed to decipher in the last few days and construct a coherent pattern from. A glimpse is below! Posted by Snag Breac at 6:28 AM Labels: etsy, knitting, knitting patterns, making, self-employment, work
 
Yeah, it never pays to knit actual things for people unless they are gifts you really want to give! I think everyone knows this, but every once in a while you do the maths, make a figure and think "maybe it's not so bad... maybe I can make some money doing that..." and then you remember THIS IS WHY I DON'T KNIT FOR A LIVING! Hurrah for all the lessons of being self-employed, though. I learn things all the time, and I try to focus on the value of knowledge, rather than being annoyed at myself for not having known in the first place. Your new pattern looks amazing! x

February 20, 2012 at 2:04 AM