Parting Is Such Sweet - well, it's sweet!

Les Parents have returned from their fiber festival adventure - you will soon see their report and pictures on my mom's blog - and the good news is:

I sold three of the smaller skeins. Yes, one of the sales was to les parents, but still...

And I also sold several of the felted catnip balls. Given that the turnout was very small at the event, that I had no signs or banners and only a tiny display of seven skeins (most of which were purple and/or pinkish), and considering that poor mom was left to sell a product she knows absolutely nothing about so that she couldn't answer questions, I'm rather pleased. My lovely mum reports that there were no negative comments, and plenty of positive ones, which is nice to hear. The rest will go up for sale on Etsy - details to come in the week ahead.

One question I have for the sales-oriented spinners out there: evidently someone asked if I would do 6-8 skeins as a special order, enough for a sweater. My feeling is that this would be difficult for several reasons. First of all, I would need the cost of materials plus a bit up front, which would be a considerable sum - I don't yet have a provider of fiber at a significant discount. Secondly, I'm not so sure that I yet have the skill to provide a standardized colorway/repeat over that large a batch of yarn; I couldn't guarantee against weird pooling in some skeins and not others, that stripes would be even, etc. I also couldn't guarantee that the person would LOVE the colors etc. once they were done - what if my ideas of olive green and plum and marigold were different from the customer's idea of olive green and plum and marigold? With the amount one would have to charge, the person would have to LOVE the yarn, don't you think?

I don't know. Has anyone out there done that sort of thing, and can you give me the benefit of your experience (or your friend's experience)?

For anyone interested, here are the skeins that sold this weekend:

Ironically, the FIRST skein to sell was the one that *I* had worried was a bit odd looking... but it was the lovely Pam's favorite of the skeins I showed her, so what do I know? That, of course, was Oscar's Waltz.

The second skein was Rose Quartz - for some reason I never got a picture of that one.

The third (the one sold to les parents) was Sunset.




And that, as they say, is that!