finishing other people's projects

I did this years ago and found that people are not willing to pay what it's worth. You might try

Pat in Illinois

I did this when my youngest was an infant, didn't charge as much as my time was worth, but did earn some stash money. Stash money was actually the point! lol

Good luck, and if you go ahead, do it because you love to stitch not because you expect to make decent money.

Caryn

I have done this, but I have *never* harged anything. The chances that you can make any significant amount of money this way are, IMHO, just about nil. HTH.

-- Jim Cripwell. A volante tribe of bards on earth are found,/ who, while the flattering zephyrs round them play,/ on "coignes of vantage" build their nests of clay;/ how quickly from that aery hold unbound,/ dust for oblivion!/ To the solid ground/ of nature trusts the mind that builds for aye. Wordsworth.

Thank you for your replies. I know this wasn't going to pay the mortgage but give me some "pin money" so I could buy more yarn and such.

Barbara

I guess it would work if you can get serious customers. Those who are not determined enough to finish it themselves but are longing to have the finished article. IMO you should at least charge them (twice??) the value of the kit. If your work is to cheap everyone drops their uninteresting stuff on your table and neither of you is getting happy.

Grea

What a fascinating site, Pat - thanks for the link.

Pat P

I should have mentioned that I charge $1/hr. One project was barely started, and I put in over 100 hrs on it. I'd have been nuts to take double the value of the "kit," as it was probably about $25 of chart and materials! lol

Caryn

I remember a few years back our Guild was asked if we could find someone to complete a tablecloth, done in cross stitch, with waste canvas, on dreadful synthetic fabric. She died while working it as a gift for a new DIL. She had done about a quarter and between us we finished the rest.

We found it difficult to work, it had bunches of flowers in a big circle in the centre, but some of the bunches occurred on the diagonal of the fabric and it was very difficult to get those bunches to look like the bunches done on the straight. Between us we got it done and hoped the DIL appreciated the effort, we didn't charge of course.

That's what would put me off finishing things - the design, colours etc. are all someone elses choice and may be quite different to something you would choose yourself. It's very hard to work on something you don't care for !

But there are people who LIKE doing the boring stuff like filling in interminable backgrounds. I used to ride the bus with someone who couldn't follow a chart on the bus, so she'd bring needlepoint where the "picture" was finished and only the solid color background was left.

My message to Barabara was: be picky, stitch what you like to stitch and only take on projects that you care for. And you meant there are people who like doing backgrounds which you, or 'we' in general, think of as boring? I wouldn't label doing backgrounds as boring, well let me see the dictionary, I would if they where interminable :-))

Grea (needlepointing these days)

I did this just once. It was for one of the Carousel Horses by Theresa Wentzler - the big patterns with the decorative edging aorund it. The original stitcher had done two of the corners and part of the edging between - and miscounted. I designed the additional space to match. The horse itself was not started. Stitcher had also added a few decorative lines of her own. After putting in 100 hours myself - she wanted to know why I wasn't finished!!

I'd never do it again.

Jan

Learn something new every day As long as you are learning, you are living When you stop learning, you start dying