Commissions

(Note, I’ve had this blog post in progress for almost 2 months! I never meant this to be an every day recording of crafting progress, but I had hoped to post more frequently that once a quarter. I’m just having too much fun crafting!)

My first commissions!

I’ve made a lot of things for other people over the years, and I love passing on a little bit of homemade love to people I know will appreciate it. Friends and relatives ask me if I’ve ever though of opening an Etsy shop, and the honest answer is both yes and no. Yes, I’ve thought about it, but no, I don’t think I’ll ever do it. Right now, as I work full time and knit at home to relax and melt away some of the everyday stress, it’s just not in the cards. I want to keep loving what I do, and I want to be able to have the freedom to randomly make something for a nephew, niece, or friend.

That doesn’t mean, however, that I look gift commissions in the mouth :) A few months ago (and where is this year flying off to again??), in a round-about way, the sister of a friend of a friend (yes, try to say that three times fast) contacted me and asked if I’d ever made one of my stuffed animals to sell. Although I hadn’t, I was open to the idea and we came to an agreement on the project, which eventually developed into two things, and a price. For fellow crafters who sell their wares, you’ll know how hard it is to set a price on a project. It’s not just a matter of material cost but of time – how do you figure out what to fairly (for yourself and the buyer) price something at? A coworker suggested I charge $10 an hour, and I think he was surprised when I couldn’t help but chuckle and tell him that no one would be able to afford the finished product. Most people don’t know how long a seemingly simple thing takes to make. For toys, it’s often not in the knitting but in the stuffing and assembling that time magically gets sucked away. As I usually knit in front of the TV or when I’m talking with friends, I’m considerably less than an efficient knitter. But that’s why I want to continue to knit for fun and not profit – I love the process of creation, the magic that makes an unassuming ball of yarn into something utterly different.

So, the (long-) finished commissions:

Giant Sack Boy

Pattern: Alan Dart’s Sackboy

Made for: a friend of a friend’s brother-in-law (the sister, his wife, commissioned it for an anniversary present)

Yarn and needles: Paton’s Shetland Chunky in Taupe and my trusty Boye needlemaster needles in (I think) US7s

Changes to pattern: oh, how I wished I had written them all down. My main goal was to get a Sack Boy that was about twice the size of the one produced by the original pattern. For the most part, this called for a straight doubling of stitches and rows. Sometimes it got more complicated, with increases being done on purl rows, and a row being skipped here and there. Since the finished product was going to be so big, I figured a skipped/extra row every here and there wouldn’t make a huge difference – and it didn’t. The only part I had to redo was one arm, because the first pattern I tried for the thumb looked ridiculous (no pictures were taken of the hitchhiker’s thumb from hell). The second try on the thumb was great – I did one extra cast on stitch instead of double the cast on stitches for the thumb.

The mouth was also a change from the pattern, because something a bit more expressive was requested. I had some felt on hand, so I cut out a half circle in black and sewed it on, and played around with a bit of red until I had something that looked right. The tongue is only sewn on across the back, so it has a bit of movement. (And Portia must always check out everything that moves – especially if it involves yarn!)

The internal stabilization was important for this Sack Boy, because of the size. If nothing was inside to keep the head straight, it would have flopped over like crazy. Straws wouldn’t cut it, and I was afraid that a wooden dowel wouldn’t put up to prolonged stress – and if it broke, splinters might poke through the stuffing and “skin.” My dad had the perfect solution, an old aluminum arrow. The head and fletchings had long ago disappeared; and after the arrow was broken in half, with the sharper ends bent over and taped, I had a perfect backbone. Light, strong, and slim.

next, The Crowning Achievement

Pattern: Princess Hat

Made for: same guy, this time as a Valentine’s Day gift

Yarn and needles: Caron Simply Soft in dark country blue, and Hobby Lobby’s I Love This Cotton in Buttercup; needles – my favorite, the Boye needlemaster US 5 and 6.

Modifications: Detailed on Ravelry (link is accessible to non-Ravelers). One of the easiest modifications I’ve done. It was just a matter of carrying over the written mods from the smaller sizes – adding a few extras rows and stitches increases where called for. The finished hat was 24” around, and although I carefully double checked on the size requested (men’s 7 3/4 size) and exact measurements of that (24 1/2”), it was a bit big. C’est la vie.