“You Should Sell Those!” and Other Famous Last Words
We’ve all heard it - Crocheters, Knitters, Weavers, Granite Carvers…
There comes a moment in every crocheter’s life when someone - usually a coworker, an in-law, or that one friend who still owes you $12 - ooks at your latest masterpiece and says the cursed phrase:
“OMG you should totally sell these!”
followed swiftly by
“Actually… can you make me one? Like… real quick?”
Real quick.
A sweater.
In crochet.
REAL. QUICK.
I laugh. They look confused. I keep laughing. They start backing away slowly.
Let’s break this down for the non-yarn-initiated.
1. Crochet Is Not Knitting’s Fast Cousin
People seem to think fiber arts exist on a neat little spectrum:
Scarf → Hat → Sweater → Cozy Little Side Hustle $$$
Bless their hearts.
Crochet, unlike its pointier sibling knitting, eats yarn like a starved wool-loving dragon. A knitted sweater might take, say, 4–6 skeins. Meanwhile a crocheted sweater will happily consume:
The original 6 skeins,
A flock of sheep in New Zealand devoted to you alone
A flock of sheep in Scotland devoted to you alone
A backup 4 skeins,
Your will to live,
And the last skein in the dye lot that you swore you didn’t need but now suddenly do.
By the end you’ve spent more on yarn than you did on your mortgage. And that’s before we even talk time.
2. “It’ll Only Take You a Few Hours, Right?”
A FEW HOURS?
My friend, this is not a TikTok time-lapse where a blanket materializes between sips of tea. This is weeks - sometimes months - of:
counting,
frogging,
recounting,
crying,
re-frogging,
re-recounting
losing your hook
and bribing the universe with new hooks for mercy.
Crochet is a craft of perseverance, patience, and questioning your own life choices. The only thing that happens “real quick” is me saying:
“No.”
3. “But I’ll Pay You!”
Oh, will you now?
Let’s do the math. No, seriously, let’s do it. Because people need to understand.
A crocheted sweater usually costs somewhere between:
$80–$200 in yarn alone (and that’s if you don’t have expensive taste… I do), plus
30–60 hours of labor, depending on stitch pattern, skill, and how many times I accidentally join the round wrong and have to question my existence.
If I paid myself even minimum wage for those hours, which I won’t. (I’ve been crocheting for 4 decades - that is NOT minimum wage experience) My skills would cost you…
I don’t know… buy a small used car?
Yet people react like I’m gouging them when I say the sweater will be $250.
$250 is a steal.
You’re practically robbing me.
4. “I Could Just Buy One at Target…”
Yes. You could. As a matter fact - go.
You know what you’ll get?
A machine-made acrylic sweater that begins pilling if you so much as make eye contact with it - that EVERYONE else also has.
Meanwhile my crochet piece is:
handcrafted,
custom-sized,
ethically produced (our sheep are very well fed),
made with quality fibers,
and infused with the tears of frustration that, frankly, make it priceless.
Target could never.
5. Why We Crochet Anyway
And here’s the twist:
We don’t do it for money.
We don’t do it for speed.
We don’t even do it for the yarn… okay, tha't’s a lie…we ABSOLUTELY do if for the yarn.
But aside from that last one…we do it because creating something from nothing, loop by loop, feeds the soul. You sit still on a comfy mat, eyes closed, forcing your mind into silence. We do that too, except in a comfy chair, eyes wide open, forcing our minds to count - just as calming and we get a sweater at the end. And also because we have a yarn stash large enough to require its own homeowners insurance clause.
So the next time someone asks you to whip up a sweater “real quick,” feel free to smile sweetly and say:
“Sure…if you supply the $200 yarn, the 50 hours at $60 an hour, and the snacks.”
Funny how quiet they get after that.