How much stuff have you got? If you have a large amount of crafty things you want to get rid of plus a bunch of books and a piece of furniture or two you might have a garage sale first and see what sells there before you sign up for Etsy. Who knows, you might find that you can sell a bunch of your stuff without paying a fee to Etsy at all! We just donated a bunch of furniture, books and clothes to Goodwill and though I’m happy we had a place to give them so that other people can get some use out of them I’m a little sad that we live somewhere that a garage sale isn’t a real possibility.
Well, excess books get donated to the library and I don’t have that much furniture. What I do have is stuff I’ve made. For example, I have 5 yards of tartan cloth I wove about 12 years ago I’m planning to make into shawls and scarves. Sitting there as a mini-bolt of cloth isn’t doing anything worthwhile, just taking up space, but it’s too nice to just toss. I have lots of that sort of thing.
5 yards of hand woven tartan cloth isn’t something that you can find anywhere and I think there would easily be a market for that. Unfortunately, I only knit and crochet. I’ve been doing hats and round blankets for a photographer friend of mine but it sounds like there’s not much market for that.
I looked for some kind of mannequin or doll that would be a good size for a newborn and everything I found was cost prohibitive. Did you know you can pay as much as $200 to $800 for a life-size newborn doll. Who knew?
That’s the funny thing, you’d think selling 5 yards would be no problem. Actually the ideal lengths are either 1 yard or 10 (for a kilt), not 5.
When I looked at the pricing it seemed making shawls would be more profitable than selling the fabric as is.
If you’re wondering what it looks like, here’s a quick photo (and yes, I know it’s not suitable for use as a selling-site photo, just wanted to give you an idea of what I’m talking about):
What a beautiful fabric!
I’m sure anything you make with it would be lovely.
Wow, that’s gorgeous.
I’m still thinking shawls for $150 and scarves for $50 or $75 would be more likely to sell than 5 yards for $375 - it’s not impossible to sell fabric like that (in fact, I was in midst of filling an order for 10 yards at $75 a yard when the deal fell through - in retrospect, I should have seen it coming, he had insisted on the lightweight threadcount rather than the denser and more durable one I had suggested, all due to price concerns… I still have my regrets) but there are more people willing to spend the lower amount on a finished product than the higher amount on raw material, even if per unit the unfinished material is cheaper.
I’m thinking $150 after looking at a lot of other wool items on Etsy, trying to compare the quality of my cloth with what’s shown. Obviously, some things require more time/effort/material than others.
If the shawls and scarves sell I might be able to justify setting up my floor loom and doing more weaving, but that’s really only cost-effective for relatively large scale production, measured in yards and not feet, due simply to the time involved in setting up the warp. Set up for weaving a full-width tartan like that is 4-5 hours of needle-threading, it’s not the fun part! I prefer a 5 or 10 foot warp because I can get a substantial length of cloth for that set up time and it’s all much more efficient.
I’d love to get back to doing overshot, and there is certainly some available on Etsy. Anyhow, I’ll need to get some more stuff out of my house before I have sufficient room to really do that.
I would pay $50 for a scarf made out of that fabric. It’s bright and cheery, just like my mother likes and would make an awesome Christmas gift for her.
If you do decide to make scarves out of it, keep me in mind!