Thistle and Broom a Scottish Knitting Business

Thistle and Broom is a company that sells more than just knitted items. I of course am most interested in that portion of the business. Paying Knitters is highly problematic for everyone in the knitting world. It's very labour intensive and can therefore eat up all the profits from a designers or sellers work. I do pretty much all of my own knitting for this reason and I'm sure that is why the free pattern testers group is so popular on Ravelry. It is only one of many such groups. 

Many of the designers I've interviewed do their own knitting or have friends that help them out creating their samples. My conundrum has been that if I pay true value to a sample knitter based on the hours of work required, I'm in the red in real cash dollars on any design that does not prove to be popular. To be honest I'm in the red on my own work as well but that is time not actual dollars out of my pocket. Tech editing requires more up front cash outlay as well. Predicting the popularity of a design in advance is a gamble at best. 

According to their site: "90% of our offerings are priced on the Fair Trade model so that 2/3rds of the retail price goes directly to the artisan."

Wow that's impressive!

Knitting Businesses - Marilyn Thomas

 

I'm always interested when I stumble across knitting businesses as there are so few of them. I found this one recently here . As usual the prices are fairly high but for this kind of special work it's not really surprising is it? The colour work is fabulous isn't it?

A Knitting Related Business on Etsy

I stumbled on this amazing Etsy artist who works with recycled sweaters.

Kat says on her site "I started making recycled patchwork hoodies 20 years ago, while I was a wee gypsy girl, following the Grateful Dead. Since then my style has evolved and grown into this sweatery madness. I have made thousands of sweaters by now. If you look at my sold listings you can see how they continue to morph and grow with each passing month. My elf coat design even seems to have inspired a little bit of a trend here on etsy. Ooh la la."

The garments are made from thrift store sweaters. She washes them thoroughly before use and uses a serger to make tight seams which are then hand finished. 

What can I say other than WOW!!!