Craft wise my biggest dilemma is my hand embroidered gloves. They've been my most popular selling item ever, online and in shops, markets etc but they don't match the rest of my recycled items ethos. When I started Polka Dot Rabbit I wanted to run a business based as much a possible on recycling and upcycling with a green ethic as far as possible.
You can't get recycled acrylic gloves and to knit gloves I'd need to charge about $50 a pair minimum to factor in labour and materials and it's a ridiculous slog for such a small return. It's also not really reusing by simply knitting unless you use donated wool and such. I don't support wool felting due to the intensive use of water and heat to created felted materials and a lot of places won't stock wool because it's not vegan.
Haven't been able to find any acrylic gloves not made in China within my price range. I've found one stockist in America but they are reluctant to ship to Australia and I'd have to raise my prices to cover costs. I want to be able to market my craft as upcycling and enviro friendly and gloves made in China doesn't do that. Not sure what to do about this to be honest. Any ideas? The only one I can think of at the moment is to have a seperate line of gloves under a subset business but it doesn't really please me....
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