Well, I have a few more days before I go back as an “employee”. Working at Davis Hill Farm has been as a consultant, so I set my own schedule, which I love, love, love. Kyle the editor of Livin’ The Vermont Way has asked me to write another profile piece, which is a huge thing for me, but is very independent. Working for the University of Vermont Extension comes with two employee orientations and forms and tours. It means submitting a time sheet and having a pay check on a regular schedule, for a set amount. Yeah. I feel very, very blessed to have a job to go to.
And the job is 28 hours a week, leaving me with about 12 hours or more a week to get into trouble. So I was thinking about selling my handspun, hand knit things on the internet. The Black Ram Farm website used to have items for sale and a pay pal set up, but nothing really moved from there. Having items on a web site means that I have to have Jo, as webmaster, do a bunch of the coding for me and I can’t afford to pay her to do that. I am taking the site down, or redirectling it to here, now that the sheep are gone. Seems silly to keep it.
So I am thinking about how to use those 12 hours to bring in a bit more income. Ebay for hand knit, hand spun stuff doesn’t work well because everybody is looking for a bargin. I don’t think I could deal with folks trying to get my stuff on the cheep. So there is a site called ETSY. http://www.etsy.com/index.php I have signed up and am thinking about having a Black Ram Farm store there, with a direct link from this blog.
I have been surfing around and it seems that the price for hand spun yarn is good, around $24.00 a 4 oz. skein from hand dyed merino roving. But my yarn would come from hand scoured, hand picked, hand dyed, hand combed, my very own merino, and I hope I could get a bit more for it. If I had to price out how long it takes me to do all of that I would cry.
Add to that hand knit, original designs, then you have a real “Green” product. I don’t know what I would charge for knit items so I will have to do some more research on what the market is getting now.
Suggestions from readers would be very helpful. Let me know what you all think.
