From The Sparrow House

This is such a tricky question to answer for many makers, myself included. How do you fairly price your labours to reflect what they cost you to make - materials and time? One of the fundamental problems encountered is that unless your items are purchased by someone who also makes, then a good majority of your customers may have absolutely no idea what goes in to something that is 'hand made', Here is a rough break down of what one of my 'hand made' items entails.  For this example I am going to use yarn I have hand dyed. 1) Preparation of yarn for dyeing - this includes winding, skeining and soaking the yarn. 2) Dyeing - including rinsing, washing and drying. 3) Choosing colours - getting the colour choices right often requires me to swatch the colours together to make sure that they work. 4) Choosing a design, then swatching again and finally  making a chart to use. 5) Knitting the mittens/hand warmers. Every single stitch in the picture below is knit by hand...

I opened my Etsy shop on 13th September. It was exciting and kinda awful all at the same time. Lucky for me I made a sale and then another which helped me feel that I am doing the right thing. Small steps yes? For anyone who reads this and who like to take a look you can find my shop  Here  I hope you like it. Please favourite it and spread the word if you can - thank you. If you follow me on social media - I am running a giveaway of a pair of 100% Pure Shetland Wool hand knit hand-warmers all you have to do is like and comment to be in the random draw which will take place on 20/09/18. Find me as Sparrow House Knits on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Lastly on this vein the first few orders will get an extra goodie sent to them as a thank you for helping me on my way. I am still knitting up new designs and colours and have so many ideas my head might well burst. In other news it is a funny week as my Mum is going in for surgery today and it is a big thing for a la...

I'm back after some time off with my best bloke. It wasn't  exactly relaxing as we had stuff to do and Mike was really busy, but it was still nice to have him home and his work mobile switched off. We made sure to take some time out, just the two of us, and that was so good for us as a couple. We are approaching our 31st Wedding Anniversary and I still have no idea how he puts up with me. We took an evening stroll at Mill Hill and saw the most vibrant sunset - just look at those colours. Truly stunning. We also both took time out to spend on hobbies - he does ceramics and art and I also draw and paint. It felt good just to have time to spend together whilst being creative. I did also knit mittens though. There's a surprise, and this week I am officially opening my Etsy shop which I am very excited about, hence the blog post title. These two pairs of traditional Fair Isle patterned hand warmers will be listed. I had so much fun making these.  And most of the i...