Process Versus Product

It took me a long time to really absorb the idea that crafting is all about process, not product. Early on, I was so impressed by what I could make. It was amazing. I was a goddess of creation, sitting in my parents' basement with a box of glass beads, making necklaces and bracelets and earrings. I wore a ridiculous amount of jewelry in those days. I still have a lot of it. It's basically glass beads on string. Sometimes they're vaguely color-coded. Usually not. But they were mine.

I moved past ugly glass beads in the basement, graduating to semi-precious stones, silver beads and wire, and Swarovski crystal. It is very, very easy to make pretty jewelry with sterling silver and Swarovski crystal. I could whip out earrings in five minutes a pair. Pretty earrings! They cost under $2 a pair to make. I'd kill an hour, spending $25 and winding up with twelve pairs of earrings. $25 is a lot to spend for an hour's fun, but hey, I got earrings out of it! I have approximately a hundred pairs of crystal earrings in a bathroom drawer right now. Ask me how often I wear earrings.

So I started looking for ways to stretch the beads. Instead of stringing beads for bracelets, I started weaving, making 2-dimensional webs of glass and crystal. Those were pretty, and took an hour or two to make, costing $2-3. I have those in a dozen colors and designs. Ask me how often I wear them.

In a decade or so of making jewelry, I probably spent five thousand dollars on it, and wound up with a drawer full of things I never wear. My work evolved gradually to make each piece take longer, and longer, a shift towards skill and patience and away from a focus on the best materials. It's been an interesting evolution. I started making French beaded flowers, weaving rings from seed beads, trying to milk as much occupation from a set of beads as possible.

After hitting a place where I told myself I absolutely could not spend more money on beads, I decided to try sewing. The problem is that while I love being able to sew, I kind of hate sewing itself. Cutting, measuring, painstakingly pinning... too much attention to detail, not enough reward. I do a lot of pillow slipcovers, placemats, and very basic pieces along those lines. Also: fabric is seriously expensive. I can buy an outfit in the store for less than I can get fabric and a pattern, even when they're on sale. So while I still sew (occasionally), it was not destined to be a long-term hobby for me.

I think I decided to pick up knitting while I was pregnant with my third child. I decided to knit a blanket for him. The yarn cost $3. Over a period of two months, I burned at least an hour a day on average working on the blanket. SCORE.

Knitting has definitely been the greatest ratio for hours-of-occupation vs. cost-of-materials. I have an enormous store of yarn by now (I need to stop buying more), and a handful of works-in-progress I can work on depending on the time I have available. Five minutes, I pick up my sweater, which I'm doing in the round, and toss off as many stitches as I can before putting it down again. Fifteen minutes, I work through a few rows of a dish towel or wash cloth or scarf -- quick rows in a simple pattern. Half an hour or more, and I can really commit to a blanket or afghan.

How do you factor labor costs into your crafting? Do you like getting a product out quickly, or do you feel more comfortable when you have a few pieces in progress?