{"id":1355,"date":"2013-01-11T09:22:59","date_gmt":"2013-01-11T14:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noelfigart.com\/blog\/?p=1355"},"modified":"2020-06-03T10:35:46","modified_gmt":"2020-06-03T14:35:46","slug":"knitting-the-expensive-hobby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/2013\/01\/11\/knitting-the-expensive-hobby\/","title":{"rendered":"Knitting: The Expensive Hobby"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was reading a discussion board recently where someone was complaining how expensive knitting was as a hobby, and quoted a price of $75 in materials for a sweater, saying that was really an expensive sweater.\n<\/p>\n

Retail? Not really. At least, not for the good, well-constructed stuff of good materials. Hell, a Dale of Norway authentic Norwegian sweater costs over $300, and I have never<\/em> spent anywhere close to that in materials for a garment I’ve made.\n<\/p>\n

That being said, I’ve also never walked into a department store and dropped $75 on a sweater in my life!\n<\/p>\n

So, is knitting an expensive hobby?\n<\/p>\n

Certainly it can be. If you’re buying the Martian spidersilk yarn dyed with crushed rubies, yeah, it’s going to be expensive. Me? Wool of the Andes<\/a> for many of my projects. Or even Lion Brand’s Fisherman’s wool<\/a> for bulky projects. You’re still looking at way under $50 for most sweaters. Since I expect at least ten years of wear out of a sweater, I don’t feel like that’s really a poor investment.\n<\/p>\n

And the perception that acrylics or acrylic blends are automatically cheaper is quite inaccurate. Wool-ease<\/a>, a common alternative to 100% wool yarn , is actually a bit more expensive than my usual Wool of the Andes. In doing the math, Wool of the Andes is actually cheaper. <\/em>$2.26\/100 yards for Wool of the Andes v. $2.29\/100 yards for the Wool Ease acrylic blend. That’s a no-brainer for me, who actually prefers to knit in 100% wool. A sweater for me runs around 1350 yards, so you’re looking at a little over $30 for a sweater.\n<\/p>\n

Me? Since it takes me a bit over 40 hours to make a sweater, you’re looking at less than a dollar an hour for entertainment, and <\/em>I get a garment that I can expect to last me into my mid-fifties that fits me better, is unique, and costs me less than I am likely to find in a department store.\n<\/p>\n

For me, it’s worth it and then some. I assure you I drop many times the amount I spend on knitting materials for books, audiobooks and my Netflix account! You who have cable TV with its millions of channels? I bet your spend even more than I do on other forms of entertainment that do not give you anything tangible at the end.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

________________________\n<\/p>\n

* I could count Internet with some legitimacy, but I don’t. It’s a necessary business expense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was reading a discussion board recently where someone was complaining how expensive knitting was as a hobby, and quoted a price of $75 in materials for a sweater, saying that was really an expensive sweater. Retail? Not really. At least, not for the good, well-constructed stuff of good materials. Hell, a Dale of Norway … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Knitting: The Expensive Hobby”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2999,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355\/revisions\/2999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}