Finished Object Friday: Purple Honey Cowl

This is it, our first Finished Object post for the year. I have an agenda for these posts and said I would explain it on the first one for the year. My agenda with the Finished Object Friday posts is to break down the process of making a project. I will go over the pattern (if applicable), cost of materials, hours invested, and any adjustments, alterations, or notes I have on the project. Finally, I will use "the Formula" to show how costs would be calculated if the project were to be sold in a retail environment. 

I hope to help those of you out there who do crafts to be able to see that you are not alone! Other people are crafting and it takes them a lot of time and money too. Sometimes I feel like I must be the only person who is taking forever to finish something, or am the only one who has to start over for the third time, or I'm the only person in the universe who just doesn't 'get' the hype around something. 

Also, I tend to get quite a few people asking me "Can you make this?" The answer is always 'yes', but I rarely say that out loud. Folks, crafting is not cheap. And to make it worth my investment to actually make it for someone, I have to charge a certain price. And it ain't Wal-Mart prices. It's Luis Vuitton prices. 

I feel like quite a few folks out there don't appreciate the effort and time that actually goes into hand knitting a hat, or designing and sewing a jacket. That's the final purpose of these posts; to help people understand the TIME and EFFORT that goes into hand making an item. Hopefully they stop and think to themselves, "Would I work for $x an hour? No. So I won't ask my friend to make me a *whatever* for less than that." 

This one was a project that I decided to make for myself. The yarn was very generously gifted to me, and I LOVE it. After all of the hustle and bustle of getting Christmas taken care of, I like to focus a little bit on myself for the month of January and make some things for myself. This year, it started around Christmas itself (although I still have one present that needs to be finished and sent to it's home), and I finished this just in time for Tennessee to decide that it is actually winter. 

The Pattern

The Honey Cowl. 

Don't you love my model? I sure do! She's my great, wonderful, awesome friend from grad school, Steph. (She's wearing a Honey Cowl, just not the one this post is about.) 

This is a free pattern on Ravelry. I first found out about it from some lovely ladies that I consider my 'knitting mamas", Ann and Kaye of Mason Dixon knitting. The Honey Cowl comes up regularly on their blog. Recently one post was all about Honey Cowl hacks, which made me think to myself "Hmmm, I should make myself one of those." 


The Yarn

Heaven's Hand Silke in Plum

Retail price: $18 per skein on the Hamilton Yarns website
This is a lovely, soft and shiny yarn produced by Hamilton yarns. I've been blessed to meet the owner, Cornelia Tuttle-Hamilton, and she is a wonderful person. This is her first yarn that I have been able to use, and it took me awhile to decide on what to do with it. I felt like the cowl was a great choice for the amount of yarn I had, as well as a good fit for the yarn. Plus, I love accessories. 

The Details

Start Date: 6 December 2015
End Date: 1 January 2016
Needle Size: US 8 
Approximate Hours to Finish: 13.5 

I did not intend to change or adapt the pattern in any way when I set out to make it. The size I chose for this one was the biggest, where you cast on 220 stitches, and set out to use up as much of the yarn as possible. I used the handy tips from Kaye to help make this a successful project. I measured out the amount of yarn needed to do a long tail cast on, and came up short. I recalculated, and re- cast on and made it perfectly. However, when I did my counting row, the second row after cast on, I discovered I had only 210 stitches. No big deal, though, since the pattern repeat is only 2 stitches and 210 is still divisible by 2. 

I started out thinking I would use the stitch marker and measure out when I should start casting off. Then, as I got closer, I decided to weigh the yarn instead. I weighed what I had left in the ball, then knit 6 rows, and weighed again. I subtracted the difference, which was 9 grams. To be safe I decided on some wiggle room and knit until I had 15 grams left in the ball and did the three rows in stockinette and then cast off. I had enough yarn after casting off that I probably could have knit another pattern repeat, but it would have been yarn chicken. I wasn't in a mood for yarn chicken. 

The Formula

Base rate: Cost of Yarn + Hours to make (assuming $15 per hour labor) 

36+ 3.33 tax + (13.5* 15)= $241.83

Minimum wage rate: (TN minimum wage is $7.25)

39.33 + 97.88=  137.21

Wholesale price: 

$483.66/274.41

My Personal Pricing Formula: 

Cost of materials+ Labor + 40%

39.33+ (13.5 *10)+ 40%=

$ 244.06

There you have it! The first Finished Object of the year. Hope you enjoyed it!

As always, if you have requests for projects you'd like to see me do, let me know and I will add it to the schedule! 

Swapping

I've been swapping on Ravelry for three years now. Off and on. Mostly on.

Recently I discovered swapping on Instagram. Sewing swapping. Which I thoroughly enjoy. However, it makes me super self conscious about my quilting skills. I don't have much right now, but I'm working on it.

Recently I realized I might have a problem. A swapping problem. So I'm trying to limit myself, especially since I'm not supposed to be buying any yarn or fabric. When I'm busy I'm really good at limiting myself, but I'm currently in the midst of a 3 week break while I wait to start at my new job.

Apparently 3 weeks was too long for me. I still have 2 swaps from the summer to finish up and mail off. But the little swap voice in my head kept whispering at me to 'sign up sign up sign up!'. I signed up for the Farmer's Market swap on one of my Ravelry Groups. Super easy, go to the farmers market, buy local, send it to your partner. I go to the Farmer's Markets here anyway, so it would be easy to pick up a couple of things for my partner.

Done. No more swaps.

But then  a block swap came up, I couldn't help myself. It's so easy to do! Just make x-amount of blocks in a specified size. Send off some of them, get the same amount back. And voila! All that's left for you to do is sew the blocks together and you have a new quilt!

I think I'm going to like this one. For several reasons: I always struggle to find extras, then I worry that my partner won't like them. And I worry that what I make isn't up to par. And when I get my package, I sometimes wonder what I'm going to do with all the little bits and bobs that come in a package. (don't get me wrong, I love swapping, but sometimes there's too many extras and I don't know what to do!) Then I worry that after getting an awesome package that I sent a not-so-great one and the other person is upset that they received something not so great.

The stress!!!

I will keep you updated on the block swap.

Stash Explosion

I've been desperately attempting to move some of my stash out of my stash since the New Year. I have gone Cold Sheep (96 days and counting!). I have projects galore, in my head at least.

But somehow, my stash has exploded beyond the tupperware in it is supposed to be confined to. I could pretend I don't know what happened. I really could. But alas, I can't. There are two reasons:

Reason One: I have several friends who have attempted to knit or crochet, or currently are knitters and crocheters, who give me yarn. I've received more yarn in the past 3 months for free (or for cookies in one case) than I have ever before.

I admittedly sold some of it on Craigslist. It was quite the achievement for me. But it didn't do much for my stash. Perhaps I should try listing some more on there to see if I can move a couple more skeins out?

I uploaded the entire stash to my Ravelry page, listing the majority of it on the "Will Trade or Sell" page. I got one inquiry, but no go. Maybe Craigslist is the way to go on that? Or Ebay?

I've used up some for Project Linus blankets. One is already completed, one is in progress, and one is in my head screaming to get out. I might let it out, it should go pretty fast and use up quite a bit of yarn...  I also have the good intention to make some baby hats for the NICU  too.

But alas, those do nothing for the Second Reason my stash is not going away;

I'm not knitting fast enough.

There are not enough hours in the day currently for me to get the knitting in that I would like to get in. I'm in the throes of thesis writing and trying to get all the loose ends of grad school gathered up and woven in. Sadly, that leaves little to no time for crafting. (As I type this I should be writing my thesis or at least reading some more research papers for it.)

And don't get me started on my fabric stash.

February Update (in March)

So here's a couple of pictures of items that have been added to the over all count. The first is a market bag made from one of the skeins of yarn I bought in Copenhagen almost three years ago. The second picture are items made for Swaps on Ravelry. So I had to wait to post the pictures. (There will be several of these types of items this year, I want to take part in 13 Swaps). It's a pair of legwarmers and a Ballband dishcloth, as found in Mason Dixon Knitting.

I also have several projects on the needles right now. I've completed two squares for my big blanket project, am halfway done with Little Sister's Dress, and have some socks and a hat that are sitting in the corner gathering dust. But I'm making progress. I really am.

Goal: 13 Miles

Earlier I posted my "Goal for the Year" to knit 13 miles of yarn. 13 miles because it's 2013. Get it? Get it?
Well, I though maybe I'd share with you all some of the ways I will get to that goal. (Also, over on the sidebar there's a little widget that tells you how much I've knit so far for the year.)

First some baby sweaters:

Little Sister's Dress  

Milo
I already have the yarn (olive green and dark blue) for both of these, as well as tentative recipients in mind. But am open to make them for someone who really really wants them...

A sweater or two for myself:

Chaste Sanna

Tourist Sweater
Both of these were gifted to me by fellow Ravelers. (If you knit and have not discovered Ravelry, go there, now.) I haven't decided on colors yet, I personally tend to gravitate toward grays and blues.

If I get really ambitious and brave I will attempt a beaded shawl:

UnsinkableAgain, made possible by the gift of beads from a fellow Raveler. (Yes, this pattern isn't beaded, but it 'spoke' to me. If you knit, or quilt, or sew, you get what I mean.)

And finally, since I've had some good success with ambitious blankets in the past, I have decided to knit at least 13 squares from the The Great North American Afghan.

There are multiple versions of this afghan from different years of publication, I have two of them so that should give me at least 13 squares that I like enough to knit up. I also plan to do this in black, hot pink, and gray (white if I can't find any gray).

And of course, since it's me, I'll be knitting plenty of socks. In fact, I joined the 13 Socks in 2013 group over on Ravelry. Let's be honest here, it's an addiction. I already have yarn for three pairs, plus baby size ones from the scraps. I might as well make it official.