Fair price for a handmade blanket?

[Random1999]

Hey all recently ive been making far too many blankets and my fil goes to bootsales every sunday (generally as a buyer but he has an old tv and other things he wants rid of) ive decided to take some down but im at a loss as to what a fair price? I used baby yarn and have white, pink and blue blankets(about 5 to sell) and it cost me £3 to make each blanket (2 balls of 1.50 baby yarn from b and m), whats a fair price to charge? i had a look online but some are going for 40-50 quid and im not charging that for a blanket.... sorry if im in the wrong place but anyone got any idea?

Oh and £5 a blanket is far too cheap.

Although I will say that if a £20 price tag gives you £17 profit then that is £3 for the yarn. That means cheap acrylic stuff? Maybe spend a bit more for some decent yarn and then charge a decent price.

I'm not a yarn snob by the way and I use some good acrylic yarns for some of my blankets, but £3 seems very cheap.

Another thing about under valuing your blankets is that people are often suspicious of cheap things. A thread about free kindle books showed that a vast majority thought allfree ebooks were going to be crap. So similarly, a fiver for a blanket may feed preconceived ideas that the blanket is faulty or old, at least not what your blanket actually is; A new item crafted by someone skilled.

The beauty of a car boot sale is to pick up a bargain. You can start at 20 and let the buyer haggle your price down. Win-win. They will still know it is worth more than what they paid.

I think HRMC can stand to lose the £15 profit the OP plans on making at the boot sale

Also I can't see the reason to be rude about the OP's choice of wool for god's sake. She's not after a profit she said. She hasn't started a shop she is using wool she likes.

you're totally undervaluing your time. how long did it take to make each blanket? then work out how much your time is worth based on minimum wage. that's the bare minimum you should charge.

why is your time worth nothing?

I agree with others who have said about undervaluing your blankets, Random - people could think that you don't think they are worthy of a higher price so why should they buy them? Someone said that to me once when I was fretting about how much to charge for my craftwork and I thought it a fair comment.

I'm 15 years old hardly likely to go registering as a seller at the HMRC now am I? I didn't make to sell I was making as a hobby and decided to sell them when we were having a clear out.I'm sure HMRC have more important things to crack down on not young mothers to be wanting a hobby O.O www.bmstores.co.uk/search?q=yarn
Ive used all yarns on that page at least once, to those who asked the yarn is strong, soft and easy to knit with. Thats what matters to me dont see why I should go to a market to pay 20 quid for a ball of yarn O.O anyhow, The bigger blankets sold for £12 and the smaller ones for 7.50 :) x

Hi Random1999, I'm pleased to read that your blankets sold. I didn't realise B&M sold wool. I agree that the price of some brands is ridiculous and puts young knitters off - if you can buy online then try searching for Stylecraft if you want to try nice bright colours. They do loads and it's usually about £1.50 a ball.

Will take a look thanks :) B+m have a small but still decent range of yarn and pretty good quality, If I could rate it it'd easily get 3-4 stars out of 5, all for less than 3 pound a ball :) xx

If you use B and M often its usually in the aisle with baby clothes and baby blankets (I go to 3 B and M's depending on the area I am in and its in the same place in all of them) x

That's great that you sold your blankets. I've used the baby wool same as from link you put up, paid just over £1 from QD (bit like B&m shop) charity shop where selling same wool for £2.50.

I crochet my first ever blanket and it was quite soft wool.

Weasel sorry that my advice didn't meet with your approval, but I stand by it and the op did ask.

I don't think I was being rude about the yarn choice and I agree with scarlet about the Stylecraft Special yarn. It is a great yarn, not squeaky and a good range of colours.

As for HMRC, they are interested whether you make a £15 profit or a £15 loss. If you make to sell then you are a business, but if the op rings them up she will cover her back and they may well say to carry on with their blessing. It's just worth being aware of that.

I made and sold for 3 years.

Lol at the OP registering with HMRC and paying tax. You know she'd have to earn £10000 from her blankets in a year to pay tax right? And £8000 to pay national insurance? That's... 533 blankets made and sold before April. Ok. Get on it OP, it's apparently a viable business!

For goodness sake, do the research. This is supposed to be a nice part of mn, not a typical bunfight.

I was registered as self employed with HMRC because that's what you are supposed to do and filled in 4 years of self assessment tax returns. I never paid a penny in tax because I never made enough profit. Of course Random won't be paying tax, but she will have done the admin that needs to be done. HMRC can and will fine those operating as self employed and who have not registered. It would be irresponsible not to inform the op of this.