I have a confession. One of the worst kinds of admission you can make, as a maker.
I bought something I could have made myself, from a store.
It’s a sweater. It already appeared in a previous post, and I glossed over the details of it like a champ. I found it when I was looking for a few new items I can wear for my new job. Having worked on a farm for the past seven years, what you might call my ‘wardrobe’ is severely lacking in clothing that fits me and doesn’t have holes. My new job came with the dress code, “wear whatever’s comfortable”. In a way this is an amazing opportunity, because for the first time ever I have the chance to think about what I wear. I’m in the unique (for me, anyway) position of being able to really plan what clothes I want to keep, what I want to have, what I want to make. However, while all this great wardrobe planning is in the works, I don’t have a whole lot of options on hand for what I can wear out of the house.
Enter the sweater. I saw it, loved it, knew at a glance I could make it – and bought it anyway. I’ve been wearing it, a lot, since it’s perfect for air-conditioning (it’s a laceweight mohair blend knit in open brioche stitch – clever, that!). Still, every time I pick it up, my maker self recognizes that, in buying it, I took the shortcut of all shortcuts. I chose instant gratification over time and effort and creating. Consequently, I now seem to be having a philosophical debate with myself over the ethics of being a creative person. What does it say about you as a creator, if you chose not to create? Despite all the many other things I am in the process of making at this very moment, I worry that little nagging voice that whispers, “cheater…” is right.
If I had bought the sweater directly from the person who made it, I would probably feel differently. Supporting fellow makers, whose work you like and admire, is part of the code. Buying from a store though, removes that personal touch and makes it little more than a cold retail transaction. Somebody, somewhere, put a lot of work into bringing this sweater to life. More likely, it was an entire team: designing garment, designing yarn, swatching, re-designing, making a prototype, scaling it all up for production, sourcing materials, marketing, styling, photographing. Also, looking at how it’s made, the finished product wasn’t created entirely without being touched by human hands. At the very least, somebody had to sew the machine-knit pieces of the sweater together, by hand. It’s not much of a connection, but it’s something.
I’ve never had this kind of buyer’s remorse over shirts, or jeans, or pants – I don’t know how to make those myself, I don’t know anyone who does, and it’s not something I’m interested in, at present. All this flak over a sweater is only because I could have made it; that makes the difference. Rationally, I know that it would take me months to find, or make, yarn, work up a pattern, and knit a similar sweater. I also know that I needed something tangible to wear sooner than that time frame allowed. And I know that as soon as I get the chance to add it to the project roster, I’ll be clicking away on one of my very own. And, still…
What do you think, as a fellow maker of things: where do you draw the line between buying and doing it yourself?
