Filet Rose Shawl

I once swore I would never do filet crochet. At the time I was just getting the hang of crochet and seeing other people's filet made me cringe. Extremely tiny. Not entirely complicate form of crochet as long as you aren't getting into the fancy Hairpin Lace or Romanian Point Lace (RPL), it is actually pretty easy to get the hang of. After some practice of course.

Oh an I will point out that when you usually see that awesome, lovely raised lace patterns. The really classy and beautiful stuff, if it is not machined it is RPL or Tatting usually. They are both very insane, extreme crochet and, makes my brain hurt just watching the tutorials. But that may change the more I practice.

As I ponder more about where my skills are now, and what they once were, versus where I want them to be. I know that I have come along way and can be happy with myself, but, I feel like the unpaid intern at a fashion studio. I love it but I had to do the math.

This is has taken about 10 hours at the point when this was taken

By this picture it's been about 15 hours

Granted, with the simple pattern above the rose its a lot fast to do, but that is still about 20 hours of work.

I first esitmated it would take about 80 hours to finish, but probably closer to 70 hours.
Sadly, I do not fore see anyone paying me (Ontario) minimum wage for it. That is about $700. I will be lucky if someone wants $250 for it. $3.50/hour doesn't cut it for thrifty Canadians, how can I compete with spending pennies a day on child labour of any brand name.

Have you even gone out and splurged on a beautiful article of clothes or well crafted leather bag? I have seen people spend over $200 on a pair of pants they wear for 3 months and toss. 

Face it, no matter how you can justify to yourself, cheaply mass produced items make our world go around.
Mind you, if you gave me $700, it would go back into the economy, not to a different country or, someone else's pocket who doesn't need more pocket change.

Nobody likes to over spend, but no one likes their work to depreciated in the grand scheme of things either.

Birthdays, Holidays, Family and Teething

Feeling drained gets tossed around a lot when you have a baby...

So after spending the majority of the last 2 weeks sleeping on a floor or couch looking after my son who is currently teething.

  Upset baby taking a cute break.

All he wants is to fall asleep chewing a hand. Now that he can pull himself up he has been yelling at me from a whole new height. Because he isn't happy unless he is on my lap, it's been hard to crochet anything. When it hasn't been an uncomfortable baby, finding the time between family birthdays, Mother's day, upcoming Fathers day.... It's hard to get 10 minutes to myself.

Ten hours of work. Not even close to finishing. I am sure it would take me as long if I didn't have a baby to look after.  Hopefully now that the little man's teeth are coming out he wont feel so put out.