Bathmats

3 down, only 1 more exam to go! I'm taking today off to chill a bit and then it's back to studying tomorrow *sigh* Though on the plus side, I managed to finish the second of the 3 bathmats I've been working on recently.

This idea was stolen from Montessori By Hand. I've got *so* many 4" patches left from making Patchy (the giant patchwork quilt, see my personal crat blog Geekzoidtastic over on Livejournal) that I thought it would be a good way to use some up!

I'm really pleased with how this one turned out, even if some of the squares don't line up *cough* I emailed the lady from Montessori to ask if she would mind me using the pattern for my etsy store and she said she didn't mind at all, so I'm planning on making 5 more of these to sell on Second Fiddle! Obviously I'm going to have to practice sewing in a straight line before these are unleashed to the world.

Without more ado, here's the bathmat! It's going to be a house warming present for my friend Frances. It's honestly not as wonky in real life (though the squares are, the shame of not being able to sew in a straight line), my photography skills leave a lot to be desired...





I'm thinking of pricing these at £15, because they take about 3-4 hours to make so I thought that sounds about fair. I'm not too bothered by pricing things to cover my time as I'd be crafting anyway and I don't plan on making a living off etsy, I just want to make a bit of extra money to cover my craft addiction really. A lot of the things I'll be making to begin with will be from stash I already own, so I won't be buying in anything specific and therefore won't have costs to cover from that point of view.

I think if my etsy store takes off, then I might start being more methodical about calculating my costs and time, but to begin with I just want to price things at what I would view to be a fair price. I don't want to make things really cheap because I know from personal experience shopping on etsy that a cheap price will make me think 'badly made', rightly or wrongly. It gives the impression that the craftster doesn't value their skills, materials or time and so I'd rather pay more for something that's obviously been well made. I figure I would pay between £5-10 for a bathmat from a standard high street shop and so £15 for something unique and handmade isn't extortionately expensive.

Ooo, in other exciting news, I finally have a credit card! Egg accepted me so hopefully this time next week I'll have an official (but empty) etsy store!