It had long been my dream to make a bit of a living spinning
and weaving wool. When I retired the first time ten years ago I thought I might
work at it for a year - just to see if I could weave or spin on a daily basis
and equally important, if I could make any money at it. I never attempted it in part
because at that point I lacked the courage to try. When I retired this time around
last December I decided that it was finally time for me to see if I could work
at this passion full time. My primary concern was whether or not I would still
enjoy it if I worked at it daily. Playing with wool gave me such pleasure - I
didn't want to lose that sense of fun just to make money.
I knew I could make money - not a lot - but enough to buy
most of my food for the year. Starting just over a year ago, I had been selling
my weaving at the Saturday Farmer's Market. I did it just for seven weeks in
the spring and seven weeks in the fall. Much to my surprise, I had enjoyed the
process of meeting potential customers. While no craftsperson enjoys people
ignoring them or even worse looking at one's stuff and then not buying it, it
was fun sitting behind my spinning wheel, chatting to the folks who stopped. On
occasion little kids would become mesmerized watching the wheel go around and
around. I always gave them a chance to touch the wool and see how soft it was.
Men, who normally would have perhaps not approached a woman playing with wool
occasionally stopped and chatted with me about the "machine" I was
using and how it worked. On a reasonably warm Saturday - it was a great way to
spend a morning. Even if I did need to be there by 6:00AM.
I never really knew how long it took me to make a rug or a
shawl. I would buy a few raw fleeces in June and then slowly putter around
washing, carding, spinning and then finally weaving the wool. During some weeks
when I was doing little else, I did a fair amount of work. On other weeks when I had
exams or papers to mark, or if something else was happening I might not touch
the wool for a whole week. It was something that I looked forward to doing and
something that I missed if I didn't do it for a few days. The product gradually
accumulated over a few years until rug racks were overloaded and my bins were
full of bags and purses. When I started to sell stuff if felt pretty easy.
Pretty easy until this year when I had to replenish my stock. I had not thought
seriously about how much work it took to make $3,000.00 worth of weaving.
In fact it is so much work that I am not too sure if it is sustainable.
For the past three months and a half months I have done something with wool for at least five to
six hours every day. I have taken time to write (over 30,000 words) and there
have been numerous times when I just sat down and read a novel. But most of my
time both during the day and in the evening has been spent with wool. The good
news is that I still love doing it. As well I think I have learnt a fair amount
about some of the techniques of my trade. I think I use my time more efficiently
and certainly there is less waste as I have learned to better measure how much
I am going to need for any project. However, I have found out that the amount
of time that it takes me to process the wool before I start to weave is far longer
than I would have guessed. At the end of the three and half months, I have
enough to sell starting this Saturday but I am not over stocked and I suspect
that by the fall (if my sales continue as they did last year) I will have to be
working hard to keep up. For the past three and half months playing with wool
has consumed me. I am not sure if I want to work this hard for the next few years. It is depressing.
The other alternative of course is to raise my prices. It
seems to me that there is a fine balance between selling a fair amount of
product at a low price and selling less product but at a higher price. I have
no way of knowing how to find that balance. I want people to buy my stuff - not
just because I need the money, but also because it gives me pleasure to know
that someone likes what I do.
I am such a bad business person. I just wanted to play with
wool and know that people enjoy using what I make.
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