New Pattern for Camera Straps and Koozies

This is really the first detailed pattern I have put out in over a year.

I put out a reversible cape pattern in the fall, but that was so simple I was embarrassed to put it up. Oddly, it sells really well.

My sister-in-law, Missy, emailed me last week and asked if I could tell her how to make one of these. I didn't even know they existed! Missy is turning into a professional photographer and has very heavy cameras she is wearing around her neck all the time.

She showed me a site called My Funky Camera where the straps sell for over $30 each. I was intrigued. I use to have large heavy cameras myself; but due to theft and an inability to maintain my hold on one I have been left to the $100 variety digital camera the last few years. It doesn't really need a strap; my pocket works fine.

So I started looking into the different sizes and styles made and sold. I decided to make the entire set; neck straps in different sizes, wrist straps in different sizes, and even len koozies. The next day my sister-in-law from Michigan arrived and she had a new LARGE digital camera. So I sewed like crazy and made the entire set of products as displayed in the photo above.

We tried them on her camera and she loved them. Well, she said she did. She is family and they can't actually say, "That's crap, take it off my camera now!"

I've spent more than 8 hours compiling the information, editing the photos, and preparing the instructions to tell others how to make these. Tonight I posted the need for "testers" to my yahoo group. I will send the e-files out to my testers and make sure the instructions can be followed and that I didn't make any glaring mistakes. Then I will move the pattern to my website and start offering it for sale.

What I had forgotten is what a bunch of WORK preparing a pattern to sell is. Counting the initial time in research (10-20 hours), the time making up dummies and figuring out what did and didn't work (10-20 hours), the time to make up the correct product and take photos of the process (10-15 hours), the time to prepare the instructions (8-10 hours), the time I'll spent talking to the testers and adjusting my pattern (2-5 hours), and the time it will take me to build the web page and stock the new pattern in my stores (2-5 hours), it is a freaking LOT OF WORK.

By the time I sell my first pattern as $10.95 I will have put in more than 60 hours of labor and spent over $35 during the process. Even at $10 an hour, my labor would be $600. I will have to sell over 57 patterns to break even.

I'll consider myself lucky that this will be an electronic pattern, or I'd have to design the envelope cover and add the cost of printing and packaging each pattern.

I guess that's the reason it's called WORKing from home.