Yesterday, I told you the story of Evelyn, who hand-knitted a multitude of tiny stocking caps before she passed away. I bought them at a church rummage sale, from a woman who seemed very disrespectful toward Evelyn.
And now I’m trying to sell these very tiny handmade stocking caps in a way that honors Evelyn’s hard work. When I say “very tiny,” this is what I mean:
To read the earlier blog post about the origin of these stocking caps, please click here.
In brief, I don’t know what Evelyn intended for these little stocking caps, but I’m sure she had some kind of craft project in mind.
Maybe she wanted to make them for little snowmen that she could give away to friends at Christmas. Or maybe she wanted to make them into Christmas tree ornaments. I honestly don’t know.
But I want to honor her memory by making sure these tiny, hand-knitted stocking caps go to people who will truly enjoy them.
Today’s blog post is an opportunity for you, my regular followers, to help me brainstorm ways to sell these tiny stocking caps in my online store.
First, what are they worth?
They’ve been for sale in my shop, for $1.99 each, but no one has purchased them. I only posted three colors of hats, to see if this would be a viable way to sell them.
When I first encountered them at the church rummage sale, I was willing to pay two dollars a piece for them, but in an online store, one must also consider the cost of shipping, which I have currently set at $7.99 because that’s the average of what it has cost me to ship the first few packages that I’ve mailed to my buyers.
I’ve tried the little hand-knitted stocking caps on various dolls. Most of them are designed to fit very small dolls, like this vintage Skipper doll and any dolls with a head-size that’s smaller than hers:
As you can see, the stocking cap fits her snugly, with the cuff rolled down.
For smaller dolls (Pippa/Topper Dawn doll sized), they look fine with the cuff, as you can see in the image below:
There are also a smattering of bigger winter hats, that seem to be made of strings of yarn, all wrapped around a plastic ring, and then tied in a way that forms a stringy pom-pom on top.
These will fit Barbie and similar-sized dolls, but they were probably much easier to make, and therefore not worth as much money.
Here’s what they look like:
In the bag of handmade hats that Evelyn made, I literally have about 100 hats in total, but only about half a dozen of them are the stringy kind that will fit Barbie.
Both styles of hats will look good with a doll’s winter coat, even just an easy-to-make felt coat.
I enjoyed making the coat and dress you see on my Remco I Dream of Jeannie doll, below, but to make 100 of these seems daunting. And I doubt that I could sell 100 of them.
I’ve made some beautiful felt coats for dolls, for various projects in the past. I like to embroider my coats, and the tiny coats with embroidery are especially fun projects for my followers.
Take this coat that I made for my Disney Mini Elsa doll, for example:
Instead of me sewing 100 of these, maybe I could create kits that include the felt, the embroidery floss, the cotton fabric for the coat’s lining, and the little knitted stocking cap hat…
What would you be willing to pay for a kit like this?
Or maybe I should try to sell the hats in bulk, with a variety of colors — a sort of “grab bag” of tiny hats. What would you be willing to pay for, say, ten little hats in a variety of colors?
Can you help me brainstorm some other ideas?
How might I honor the memory of Evelyn, who made these tiny hats, and at the same time offer a product that you, my followers, would enjoy working with, in your own creative endeavors?
Please add your thoughts in the comments section! Thanks!
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To honor the trademark rights of the doll companies mentioned in this blog post, I am including links to their websites here. Please feel free to visit their website and consider purchasing one or more of the dolls mentioned.