It’s back to the time of year when I find myself engrossed in making Christmas decorations with wonderful memories of The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre doing Macbeth (https://youtu.be/AVwcjIEpqlE) - stab, stab, stab, deed! Crikey, I’m rambling on the first sentence - this is a record, even for me!
Anyway, back on track. Have you ever wondered how to needlefelt and why handmade goods can be so expensive? I have recorded myself needlefelting a Christmas Pudding in order to show you the process. It is recorded in timelapse so this is about 5 hours of work reduced to 4 minutes. In the video you will see seven different needles, all of which are used at different stages of the process. The biggest needles with the most barbs are used at the beginning of the process and the needles with the least barbs are used at the end for smoothing the piece of work. In short, when the needles are stabbed into the fleece the barbs catch the fibres and knit them together. The more you stab (hence my thoughts triggering to sock puppets and Macbeth) the more solid the piece becomes.
Why is it so expensive to buy handmade? As I said earlier, this Christmas Pudding took 5 hours to make. If I charge myself out at minimum wage (currently £9 per hour) I should be charging £45 plus the cost of materials. Would you pay £50 for a Christmas bauble? Nope. Neither would I! I have priced it at £12, knowing that some people will still think it’s too expensive, however, it means that once I have paid for materials, I have worked for £1.75 per hour. Shocking, huh?! Most artists and crafters often have to undersell unfortunately. Ultimately we don’t do it to make money, we do it because we love it. Yes, you can get similar items mass produced that cost less but I would urge you all to support local artists and local businesses by shopping local instead of supporting large mass producing companies. I can guarantee you that every one of us does a wee happy dance for each and every sale we make and pours a bit of love into each piece made.
This Pudding and other Christmas decorations are for sale on my Etsy site: https://etsy.me/2Ouh3HV and in “The Bank - of Dalkeith”.
Needlefelting a Christmas Pudding
The completed Christmas Pudding.
This photo shows the tiny barbs on the needles.
I have coded my needles in order to easily differentiate them.