how do you let a muggle down nicely when they ask you to knit something?

[sarasaurus]

I thought of this webcomic when I saw this thread:
http://www.reallifecomics.com/archive/091019.html
MARIO QUILT!

[resonanteye]

I don't knit well or often, I've been making myself a blanket for...two years now. lol

I tattoo professionally though, and it's all the same comments- I've been doing it for 15 years and people still think it's funny to say "You can practice on me!"

dude. I charge 120 an hour- I stopped needing practice 14 years ago!
Or family wanting me to draw things, friends wanting me to design stuff...always with no mention of money
I do the "ask-a-reciprocal-favor" thing usually.

I love this thread. It's at least reassuring to know every artsy craftsy person gets the same thing...

[rottenlittleboys]

I work in a fabric shop. Yesterday a man came in, bought half a yard of fabric then asked me if I would sew it for him.

I answered, 'Sure, I have a base rate of $10 an hour.'

He got huffy and replied, 'It would only take 5 minutes'

I let him know I still have a base rate.

Come on people. Mixing kool-aid takes longer than 5 minutes. 

[LadybugsAndBumblebees]

Unfortunately, I never have that problem.  Nobody ever asks me to make anything for them. 

[paperface]

A cousin of a friend once added me on facebook just to ask me if i'd knit her son a cable knit (yes, that's right...cable knit!) jumper for the weekend (this was thursday night) i've never even attempted cables...oh yea, no mention of paying or anything.... i knit for free for family and friends but that's crazy. she thought i was being iffy when i said that it was impossible for me to do it in that short space of time and for nothing...then i promptly deleted her

[mrsflibble]

my biggest bugbear isn't people asking for things, it's people telling me I should make things to sell.
for instance my owl jumper. Yes. Natty, comfy, I love it, but selling them? he-e-e-ell no.

ok, so we factor in time worked, let's say for uk minimum wage of £5.70 p/h that's already a baseline cost of £239.40 as the damned thing took me 42 hours. then the cost of the yarn, buttons and new circular needles I needed to buy, that's another £15... I know it's funky, but who the eff would pay over £255 for an effing sweater?! oh and not to mention the pattern is P.U.O meaning I couldn't sell it anyway....

Finally, I have been trying to sell things I have made and nobody wants to know, so why would I slog my guts out on something to have it online for ages, not getting sold??!

[SpeakNerdyToMe]

This is always happening to me! I'm in highschool and rarely have the free time to get anywhere with my knitting, so I've started bringing my knitting to school and doing it during lectures. This is a great way to make time to knit, but it also means i get the joy of having randoms come up and very blantantly ask for gifts. They never offer to pay for anything, least of which my precious time! It's infuriating! The easiest way I've to get around the multitude of beggars is to quietly tell them that the piece I am currently on it part of a huge process, that coupled with schooling would mean they would get their 'gift' some time in the next 3 years, if they want to be put on a waiting list, that is...most stop asking. If then they still persist, just saying you reaally can't usually helps.

[Sara87]

I blame Molly Weasley... 7 kids and the cheap and easy thing to do is to knit them all jumpers?! Come on JKR, I know she's got the use of magic but STILL!

[TkRainy]

My stepmoms mother is the kind of person who makes people think that knitting takes no time. Since she retired, she knits all day (She's been knitting FOREVER so she's really fast) and then donates the knitting. She makes baby clothes the most I think, but she knitted both of my brothers sweaters for xmas one year. She chose the most disgusting yarn ever though! So they never wear them! They are both young too so they probably can't even fit in them anymore.

I am not that fast at knitting but last night I discovered the continental style of knitting and hope that I can get the hang of that. For xmas this year I've knitted a hat and 2 pairs of wrist warmers. I got some yarn free from a friend of mine and another friend gives me yarn to make him something out of and then lets me keep it. If it's too hard, then I actually tell them that I can't do it because I'm not that good at knitting yet. One friend wanted her wrist warmers to have like half fingers on it but I kept telling her I couldn't because I didn't know how and she still loves them (thank god.)

[lindoriel]

Just read the entire thread in one go and have to say, Holy Hand Grenade, people can be a$$hats. When I was in school, I had random people ask me to make them things... worst was my bio teacher who I couldn't stand. She wanted me to make her a hat. I told her about how much yarn I'd need and quoted her a price that I now realize was ridiculously low, and... never ended up making the hat. She'd talk about it during breaks in class, and I'd remind her that she was supposed to supply the yarn, and she'd swear that she'd bring it, and the next thing you know, the semester was over and she hadn't brought yarn. I am so far beyond glad I never ended up making her that blasted hat... I also had some bint who spent a semester and a half mooching off me and my friends, generally being a royal b!tch, and eventually getting herself banned from campus for keying a professor's car demand that I make her several fairly complex amigurumi. And get pissed when I told her that I had just started making amigurumi and those patterns were not something I could make... 

On a more positive note, I've been able to knit socks for my bf, and he adores them and wears them almost constantly, and I get a happy warm fuzzy feeling whenever he does. I've got a pair on needles for his birthday at the moment, and am ecstatic to have found something that I can knit for him that he'll actually wear. I learned from the horror stories in Son of Stitch 'n Bitch... I can never think of anything to buy for him, and the ability to knit him socks that he'll happily wear until they're a mass of darns makes me happy.  He also knows how much work goes into handmade things, because he makes jewelry, works in wood,  sews his own garb, and mods his own rapiers... I love my SCAdian man... 

Also, I KIP at my SCA barony's fighter practice and get tons of compliments on my skills (I wear a pair of Elizabeth Zimmerman's tights I made, using the Moccasin Socks for the feet, and have no compunction whatsoever about showing them off...they took forever), which is awesome because some of the most sincere compliments I've gotten are from people like my baroness, who is almost constantly spinning. And there are enough people who do fiber arts of some kind that nobody demands that I knit for them, which is fantastic. I have plans to make something wonderful for her and the baron at some point, I just need to figure out what to make... I may make something for Their Majesties as well, but it'll probably depend on who the next King and Queen are, since I have a stupidly huge backlog...