For the purposes of this particular post, I’ll be using my own materials and products as examples, since these are what I am most familiar with.

Also, before I really get into the topic of this post, I want to make 1 thing very, very clear. Crochet CAN NOT be done by machine, this has been proven many, many times.

 

Places like Amazon have made the population come to expect a quick turn around when it comes to ordering product. Places like Temu have taught people that they get get things for dirt cheap costs. Crochet is not either of these things.  If it is, looking at you fast fashion, chances are that it either, isn’t real crochet or the person who did make it, was severely underpaid.

Time:

Crochet, especially custom/bespoke crochet can have a long turn around. A typical amigurumi can take me up to a week, and a blanket, depending on the size that take anywhere from 3 week to a year. Factors that add to the time frame, can include a full-time, non-crochet related job, kids, and regular day-to-day life.

An example of this, are the dragons I make. They take me, if I don’t get interrupted, roughly 6 hours to make. I discovered because I did one, start to finish, on a Twitch stream back in October of 2023. It usually take a week to make one of these because, unless I want to sacrifice sleep, I don’t have 6 hours to just sit and crochet in a single day. With a fulltime job and a 6 year old boy who was recently diagnosed with ADHD I have a lot going on. There are also household chores and keeping up with my personal relationships.

Shipping also can add time to the piece as it can take me a few days to get the piece packaged up and dropped off to the post office. It’s a big reason why I, personally, have designated shipping days.

 

Cost:

Let’s discuss the cost of a crochet piece.

Personally, I under price my work. I have 2 reasons for that. The first is, I still have big doubts about my skills. I’m a left handed person who crochets with my right, and also crochets backwards. The second reason has to do with where I live. If I were to price my pieces what they are actually worth, I would never have any buyers. Nobody in my area of the United States, or even my area of Virginia would be able to afford my work.

The dragons go for $20 on my website.This is definitely less than they should be. I typically use DK yarns that sell for between $25 and $35 a hank. For simplicity’s sake, let’s saw the red for this one was $30. I can get 2 dragons out of 1 hank. The white on the back was already in my stash, so lets say I used $0.50 of the white. We’re up to $15.50 in just materials so far. The safety eyes are from a multi pack that cost about $15, which means this set is $0.20. I’ll had $2.50 for the fluff since it came out of a 20lb box that I paid $55 dollars for.  That brings just the material cost to $18.20.

If I were to pay myself actual minimum wage (for the state of Virginia), I would charge $11 an hour to make the dragon. Time pay alone is $66.00.

Materials (18.20) + Hours worked (66.00) = Actual cost ($84.20)

$84.20  This is what I should be charging for a dragon. I under charge by $64.20.

Will I ever have a buyer for a little dragon for that cost, probably not. Do I have a loss every time I sell one? Absolutely, and I am ok with that. Will I ever raise the price? Maybe, I haven’t fully decided yet.

For me, selling crochet is not all about the money.It’s about seeing my customers happy faces and hearing the adventures my creations have been on.