Why Handmade?

I'm going to talk about something that does the equivalent to giving me thought hives. It's something that's gotten into my head and bothers me on a minor level for a pretty significant amount of time. Sort of like the thought equivalent of me petting a dog. I touch a dog, and then for the rest of the day, whatever part of my body came into contact with that cute, fluffy doggy fur will itch. Some ideas are like that for me, and this is one of them.

Not too long ago, Etsy made some "clarifications" to their handmade policy. Etsy is often thought of as *the* place for handmade things, and for the most part it does an okay job at that. The rules a few years ago were that everything needed to be handmade by the person selling, and if they had help by family or friends, this had to be disclosed, and those people listed in the shop info. Then this changed to handmade by the person selling or someone in their immediate employ-- not a factory, but a handful of employees. This has changed even more, to now being the person owning the shop must design the things, but they can outsource to a factory if they wish (and as long as they disclose that in their shop info somewhere).

I can kind of understand this. For all of those people custom designing wedding invitations, T-shirts, etc. and having them printed somewhere else, then selling them as an original design-- that makes sense. What customers are paying for in those instances is the work that went into the design, not a hand sewn shirt or handmade paper. Sort of like the coloring books that Melanie and I made. She did all of the illustrations herself, I did all of the text, but neither of us were capable of printing and binding them on our own, so we got someone else to do that bit. Not knowing if that actually counted as "handmade" by Etsy standards, I never listed them on Etsy before, but such things also sell better in person, so I bring them to fall craft fairs with me.

I'm completely okay with all of that. What bothers me, and what's giving me the brain hives is that this is the same rule across the board. I'm sure it would be a nightmare for the Etsy staff to try to separate out how this rule would apply to the different categories (and I have no clue how the new rule applies to vintage things at all). So it's a blanket rule for everyone. This, I'm not fond of.



When I started making sock monkeys, I didn't intend to start selling them, I just needed more monkeys to do a photo challenge. When people started asking to buy them, I started selling them, and to me, part of what makes them special is that they really are handmade. I mean handmade in every sense of the word-- there aren't a dozen (usually underpaid) people sitting in a warehouse somewhere stitching together Monkeyville Sock Monkeys. There's me.

This is George, the very first sock monkey I ever made.

I really do make each monkey by hand. I sew the bodies on a regular sewing machine (I got it at Target, it's not anything special, but it has a stretchy fabric setting), I stuff each monkey, and I assemble them. The limbs, ear, tail, mouth, and all of the facial details are hand stitched, the felt for the hearts and other tummy adornments is cut by hand (freehand too most of the time) and that's attached by hand too. On very rare occasions, I have a bit of help stuffing them, because when things get busy, I'm often not physically capable of stuffing all of the monkeys. I have arthritis, so I occasionally have friends and family help me with that. I also always ask for help with names, because I've made so many monkeys now, that I just can't think of anymore, and everyone I know people with really good ideas.

I could completely outsource monkey manufacture. Just write up some schematics and send them off to some factory somewhere and say "make these guys, and make them all look like this" and I could sell them on Etsy if I wanted. It wasn't a strict adherence to Etsy's rules or some kind of loyalty to that particular site that has stopped me from outsourcing the monkeys.What stopped me, was that to outsource the monkeys would defeat the whole purpose of making them.

This is where the fact that I never set out to sell the sock monkeys is a factor. I started out making them because I needed something that would distract me from everything else in my life being broken. I gave away a bunch of monkeys, but I needed something else to do with them, so I started selling them. When things got hard again, the monkeys saved the day again, providing much needed income when I was unemployed, and a much needed distraction from the constant "OMG! I MUST JOB!"

An old photo of in progress monkeys. The technique is different, but the process is the same.

If someone else was making the monkeys, none of those things would have been there. I'd like to think the fact that each one is unique and made by me makes a difference in the monkeys too-- at the very least, they don't get ruptured stitches that require intensive surgery the same way. My concerns aren't producing as many sock monkeys as cheaply as possible to maximize profit, I make the monkeys because I like to. I love sock monkeys, and as I've said before, they're my way of making the world a bit better. Paying other people to make them just doesn't do the same thing.

The current Monkeyville Fall/Winter Flock, waiting for adoption!

Each one of those little guys takes me at least a couple hours to make. The more complicated the details (more than one heart, the skeletons) mean more time. Am I ever going to make hundreds of these guys a week? Not likely, but I make as many of them as I can, because I like to make things, and I like making things that make people happy even more.