Back in July some of us got together and had a “dye” day.  It was great fun and during the processing I found a piece of wool roving (mystery wool since I have forgotten which bag it originally came out of.. ;o/  It was about 7 ft. long and rather thick roving.  If I were guessing it’s cost would be at the very most $1.00 since there was at least 20 pieces that long in the approx.  $18.00 bag of roving …  Add  to that the cost of 3 packages of Kool Aid  and you have spent ..at the most…$4.00. Now.. a person could say that you must add in the $350.00 cost of the spinning wheel…but not so.  If you have a spinning wheel that’s great, but the same thing can be done with a toy wheel spindle that would cost less than a dollar.

Now we have a cost of about $6.00.  The knitting needles can be made from two pieces of dowel rod cut to whatever length is the most comfortable for you with a point on one end of each needle made by a pencil sharpener…then the two needles are sanded until very smooth.  I’m not sure we should count the cost of equipment since it can be used for as many projects as you care to make, but just for the sake of this exercise we’ll add it.  That would cost less than another dollar.  We are now at $7.00.

That would make this set of scarf and wristlets cost less than $7.00 since I even had some yarn left over.. not much, but some.  What about my time!??  If I were making them as part of a plan to make money for the household I would count every minute of the time it took to make this set…including the time spent choosing the wool, the dyeing, the spinning, the knitting… But lets face it.. no one is going to get rich doing that.

Now, if a person is trying to save a little money on the expensive things that you buy….that’s a different story.  It takes less than 10 minutes to dye the roving.  About 3 hours was spent spinning the yarn.  The knitting was done in the evenings as we were watching television.  No big hurry.

Now.. the retail price for something like this.  Here’s a similar stitch scarf being sold for $55.00 on etsy.com .. Hand Knit Scarf Silk Mohair and Wool  (Shortly after this was posted, the scarf was sold.  Sorry.. ;o(

I have some Silk/Mohair/Wool roving and the difference in cost would be about $.75 to $1.00. The cost to buy  just the scarf would be $55.00.  Ours cost $8.00 to make both the scarf and the wristlets  (if using the mohair,silk and wool)  That is a savings of $47.00.  Not bad for playing around in your spare time.  ;o)  And this doesn’t even count the price for the wristlets!  The wristlets would sell for anywhere from $25.00 to $50.00 if sold on etsy.com.

Just a plain wool simple garter stitch hand spun and hand knit scarf sells for $15.00 to $20.00..  What nice gifts to give at a real savings!  ;o)