Where is Yarn Boy?

Sorry this space has been so quiet lately! I’ve been working on other projects, like looking for an agent for my novel. That process takes up an obscene amount of time——and comes with no guarantees——but I’m starting to have some success.  With any luck, you might see me in print soon.

Besides here, I mean.

In the meantime, I’m about to answer some ask yarn boy questions that have been sitting in my mailbox for far too long, so you’ll soon be able to scoot over there for your fix.  A new regular post is on the way!

Buy My Hat!

If you’re in the habit of showing your knitting to other people, then you’ve heard, on at least one occasion, some version of this remark:

“Oh my gosh! You should sell your work! You could make a ton of money!”

And if you’re in the habit of finding ways to make a buck from doing things that you love instead of things that make you feel like Satan has a lease on your soul, then you’ve given this remark some serious thought.

Which means that you’ve probably done a little math, and figured out that if you were really going to charge what your time is worth——or even a fraction of what your time is worth——a sweater that came off your needles would ring in at, oh, anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000.

You’ve told yourself that, well, you can’t charge that much——I mean, no one is going to buy a sweater with that kind of a price tag, and you certainly couldn’t ever charge one of your friends that much.

Some people, however, want to pay you. They insist, even. They want to give you something for your time, skill and effort. If this person happens to be one of your friends, then you end up deciding on a figure that satisfies their desire to compensate you financially without you having to feel guilty about it.

But what if they don’t like the finished item? What if it doesn’t fit? What if it turns out to be a Cursed Project and you just can’t seem to finish it, and it sits in the back of your closet for months on end, and it haunts every conversation with that friend, lurking unnamed and unspoken behind every word?

I’ve resolved this last problem by asking my friends to simply pay for the yarn, but the immutable relationship of time vs. energy vs. money still conspires against my making any real money from the actual act of knitting. Only Julia Roberts can afford the real price of one of my sweaters, and from what I’ve heard, she can knit her own.

But friends! Does this mean that you can’t make any money from your knitting? Certainly not! See this:

This is a Halfdome, from back when I had a plan to dominate the world with my knitting (and before I figured out that I could sell my designs to knitty). It’s not doing anything sitting in my closet, so I’m selling it on eBay. It’s a regular adult size (for heads approximately 19 to 21 inches around) with the usual grey brim, but the rest of it is pink. I used Debbie Bliss Cashmereno for the whole thing.

Interested in this Yarn Boy original? Bid away!