The price is, uh, right?

At the risk of tooting my own horn, I must say, I am really good at the tye dye thing. The creation part of the tye dye process is something I have perfected. I don’t do a lot of fancy stuff. No peace signs or wonky stripes. I do a lovely classic spiral. I have excellent color saturation and intensity. My colors are clean and vibrant – not muddied. I know what I am doing.

I am not so good at the administrative part. Every year I vow to get “really organized” with my receipts so I am not spending the better part of three weekends every January organizing the receipts I should have been organizing during the year, in order to do my tax return.

Every year I fail. Yes, another failed resolution on my behalf, right next to lose more weight and save more money. I suck at those too.

My little tye dye opportunity is not exactly a money maker. It’s more like a break-even hobby. I probably clear enough for a few pedicures or a couple of nice dinners out. Last year I lost money. Craptastic. So I finally dug into the “why” I lost money. You know, a mere 6 months later. I’m nothing if not timely.

Well, first off the price of cotton has increased like 80%. I’m not sure who to thank for that.

A New York Times article indicated it was a supply and demand imbalance. I probably should have paid better attention in economics class. Regardless – the cost of all my blanks (the white stuff before it’s dyed) costs more now. And the cost of dye has gone up. I don’t think there is a supply and demand imbalance with dye. I think they cost just went up because it could. But for some reason cotton is way more expensive then synthetic fibers. Natural fiber is in and it’s going to cost more to get it.

So basically I wasn’t charging enough. I had to raise my prices, which I really didn’t want to do but geez-oh-petes I have to break even on the stuff at least. And like most artists, I barely factor in my time. It takes T-I-M-E to make this stuff, peeps. Tye dye doesn’t grow on trees.

My first show is in July with my “new and improved” pricing and I’ll be really curious to see how much of a ripple it makes with the buying public.

There are, of course, small populations of people who want hand-made items at Wal-Mart prices. I generally ignore them anyway. These are the same people who wonder why their RIT tye dye experiment turned all their laundry a dingy shade of grey. But for the folks that buy local and handmade, will a $2 price differential be enough to drive them away and into the arms of Target or will they still see the value in buying handmade?

Time will tell. I’ll report back after July 16th.