We were lucky to catch up with Darcie Farrington recently and have shared our conversation below.

Darcie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s jump right into the heart of things. Outsiders often think businesses or industries have much larger profit margins than they actually do – the reason is that outsiders are often unaware of the biggest challenges to profitability in various industries – what’s the biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?

The biggest challenge is learning how to price handmade crochet or needle felted items. To get to the desired end product, it can take me an hour or two months to finish something depending on the materials and time needed. Starting with an hourly rate, plus materials and profit percentage is the best way to price handmade items; however, if starting a custom order that hasn’t been done before, it can be rather difficult to give a quote. Having the experience beforehand of how long certain designs could possibly take can come in handy, but there are times that it becomes more complex than previously conceived. I have had artist friends ask me how to price their items many times, and I always recommend the Cost Plus method, and tell them to make sure they pay themselves a good hourly rate.

Darcie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hi! My name is Darcie Farrington, I am the owner of Dark Fiber Crafts. I got into fiber art at a young age by learning how to crochet from my mother. The era of YouTube learning started coming about and I further advanced my techniques and learned many other art mediums. I absolutely adore making anything leaning towards spooky. My favorite thing to make right now are needle felted mushrooms with eyes! I can crochet, knit, sew, and needle felt. I have taken plenty of custom orders over the last 10 years that I’ve been doing this, so estimating how long a potential project will take comes rather easily. I have practiced enough that I can make items rather quickly.
I am pretty proud of the fact that someone can send me a reference picture of something crocheted and I can reproduce it just from one image. However, I do prefer to make my own designs and sell those online or at local shows.

I love to make jack-o-lantern head people, mushroom people, anything mushroom related, and am dabbling into more vulture culture with bones and taxidermy décor.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

The most effective source of growing clientele has always been social media and word of mouth. I have made countless things over the years. People who have bought from me in the past have had friends and family buy from me. Someone might post a picture of the item I made, then link to my social media and I have gotten clientele that way. I recently sold at a tattoo convention where tattoo artists came from all over the United States. One of the artists partners saw my products on the conventions social media, tagged the artist that was there saying that she wanted him to bring three items home! I commented responding saying I could hold them for him to pick up the following day, as it was a 3 day event.
Conventions and other businesses sharing your content always brings more revenue as well. People will be drawn to that one business with a similar interest in mind, then see your products and decide to purchase something from you as well!
Always invest in your clients happiness and local businesses.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Growing up, my family always struggled. A big part of what influenced me was trying to help support myself. As early as middle school, I started hand sewing little dolls out of scrap t-shirt fabric that I cut up and selling them to other kids at school. In high school, I started getting really into crochet. That is when I fully realized my passion for making fiber art and selling it to my peers who had similar interests. I have always loved Halloween and the macabre. I have found that there is a market for cute or downright spooky fiber art! I have continued to try to sell my products as a source of some sort of income and it is becoming more of my main income. I have had many trials and tribulations over the years, but fiber art has always been a staple for keeping my mental health in check. I have been diagnosed with depression and PTSD, and written papers about how crocheting and knitting have been proven to be therapeutic for people with such diagnoses. My passion is to teach more people how to crochet to help them with their day to day mental health.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.darkfibercrafts.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darkfibercrafts/

Image Credits
Santa is Mikey Mason!