Made a bell bag filled with chocolate coins for my friend as a christmas gift, I'm so thrilled with this! The pattern is by Winter Kamas, it's free and you can find it here.

real calculations of selling handknits

Every few months, I go through my knitting dresser and air out/freshen my knitted goods.

The most recent clean out of my dresser, I realized how many handknit sweaters I haven’t wore in a long time or even, at all.

I’ve gifted some sweaters already, however, everyone around me continuously says, “Sell them!” Yeah, easier said than done because the cost of materials/wool yarn used is already over $100. Then you add in labor, which is many many hours… therefore, how much are you actually going to pay for a handknit sweater? $400?

I will be breaking it down here.

Quality of materials: If I am going to spend hours and hours on knitting, I’m going to use yarn that won’t dry out my hands and won’t be too strenuous for the repetitious movements of my fingers… soft merino wool and/or cashmere blends.

Number of hours of knitting: For a women’s adult size sweater (medium), it usually takes me approximately 25 to 40 hours of knitting in total. The thinner the yarn the longer it takes. Also, the more intricate stitches like lace, cables, colourwork, etc, takes longer than simply knitting a plain knit stitch.

Thick or thin yarn: I personally prefer yarn in the thickness (in knitting terms: weight) of baby/sock/fingering to sport/DK to worsted/aran size of yarn. Basically, I enjoy knitting with yarn that’s suitable for needle sizes between 3mm to 6mm. Anything smaller or bigger cramps my hands easily, and remember, it’s many hours of straight knitting (I also have a computer job, so lots of typing with my fingers).

Many times, you’d see handknits on sell with very thick yarn. That is because the thicker the yarn, the less stitches you will need to make. So the faster it’ll knit up.

Amount of yarn: I knit adult size sweaters, mostly for myself. For the thickness/weight of yarn, let’s start with fingering and sport weight yarn. For a very fitted sweater, approximately 350g or more (definitely no less than 350g for me in fingering weight). For a regular size sweater where I can wear a long sleeve and a tank under it, approximately 450g of yarn (both fingering and sport weight). Slightly over size and very comfy yet flattering, 550g or more of yarn.

As for thicker yarn like worsted and aran, I knit with at least 550g for a good size sweater for myself.

I usually prefer long sleeves and non-crop sweaters.

Time saver and convenience: I’m not crazy about seaming. I enjoy the convenience of knitting a seamless sweater. It saves additional hour or two (sometimes more) from blocking pieces before seaming and carefully sewing all the pieces together.

Now let’s calculate!

Let’s go with least amount of materials and hours.

Materials: A very fitted sweater (adult women’s medium) takes me about 350g of merino wool (not itchy). Each ball of yarn is about 115g (sometimes comes in 100g), so we will need to purchase 3 balls to make 345g (a little less than what we would actually need but let’s go with it). Each ball of soft merino wool yarn is about $30 (on the very low end of the price scale that’s not itchy to most people). So materials for this very fitted (most likely too fitted and tight for me but this is just for calculations for lowest cost) $90 without tax.

Hours of labor: The fastest I ever knitted and timed was 25 hours (most likely with plain stitches – no lace, no cables, no fancy stitches). If we go with minimum wage, (I live in British Columbia, Canada, and the minimum wage here is $15.20 pre hour) let’s times that by the number of hours. $15.20 x 25hrs = $380

Total: So the minimum materials of $90, plus minimum wage with the least amount of knitting hours $380, is a grant total of $470 for just one of my handknitted sweaters that took the least amount of materials and the least amount of hours for minimum wage.

I think if I priced them that at least covers the total cost of materials and some of the tears and sweat that goes along with hardwork, I would feel okay with it. Every item I’ve knitted with my two hands always leave a bit of sentimental value to it.

Little Stash Busting Cushions I wanted a stash busting project to use up leftover yarns - so using the Beautiful Shells blanket pattern by Lahoma Nally-Kaye I designed these beautiful cushions. They took about 200g in a DK yarn but as I was using leftover yarns I estimated 100g in each colour to be sure, including the edging. I always use a 3.00mm crochet hook which is my ‘go to’ hook of choice whenever I work in double knitting yarn. I did purchase the cushion inserts - 14” x 14” (35cm) squares at approximately £3 each. BLUES cushion - Side 1: Working the first two rows in Royal Blue, I worked the 3rd row in a light Blue, rows 4 to 6 in the Royal Blue again. Remembering that rows 5 and 6 are repeated, I worked row 7 in the light Blue, the next 3 rows in the Royal Blue and so on until 18 rows worked (third row in Royal Blue). I then worked the next TWO rows in the light Blue, the next TWO rows in the Royal Blue and finished off. Side 2: I reversed the colourway, meaning that it was started with two rows in the light Blue and finished at row 18 in the light Blue. I then worked the next TWO rows in the Royal Blue, the next TWO rows in the light Blue and finished off. I put the two sides together and using the Royal Blue (in this case), worked double crochet around three sides, attaching the two pieces together. I added the cushion insert and continued the double crochet along the edge, enclosing the cushion and finished off. Viola! One little cushion. For this cushion I used Stylecraft Special DK in Royal Blue and Cloud Blue. PINKS cushion - I worked this the same way as I did the Blues cushion, using a James C Brett Twinkle DK yarn in Cerise and an Ice DK yarn in Baby Love Pink DK. Again I reversed the colourway for Side 2 - meaning that one side was started with two rows in the Twinkle Cerise and ending with row 18 in the Twinkle Cerise and the other side was started and finished in the Pink and was also edged in this colour. GREENS cushion - Side 1: I worked this one the say way as I did the Blues and the Pinks cushion for one side, using a Womens Institute Premium Acrylic DK yarn in Lime, and Robin DK in Moss Green working the contrast in a leftover Teal colour. The only trouble with stash busting is that the leftover yarns don’t always match so the colours in this green cushion are all very different! The reverse side (2) was worked slightly differently - worked rows 1 to 3 in the Teal colour (all that was left!) then the remainder of the cushion and the edging, all in a Stylecraft Special DK yarn in Meadow. If you have any questions please contact me. #stylecraftblogstars #stylecraftspecialdk #addictedtocrochet #crochetlove #lovetocrochet #cushionlove #handmadewithlove #beautifulshells #womensinstituteyarns #jamescbrett #iceyarns #royalblue #cloudblue #pink #cerise #lime #meadow #mossgreen #topaz #teal #jade #ravelry #instagram #twitter #tumblr #facebook