For this week’s homework assignment, I sewed a heart out of felt.
I began by folding a piece of paper in half, drawing half a heart, then cutting out the heart.
- Paper
- Felt
- Embroidery thread
- Cotton Batting
- Stuffing
- Scissors
- Needle
- Pins
Most of the tools and materials that I used are purchased in bulk. I used a single sheet of paper, but paper is not sold in sheets. Purchasing 1 ream of paper costs ~$10 and an individual piece of paper costs ~$0.02. The fabric costs ~$13 and $1.50 per square foot. A pack of thread costs $8. A pack of cotton batting costs $4.38. For the tools, scissors costs $6.50, sewing needles $4, $0.11 per needle. Lastly, the pins cost $5 for a pack, $.01 per pin.
The total cost for the raw materials and tools is $42.88. However, I did not use all of the raw materials. The cost of the materials that went into making the heart is ~$2.62. The tools is a harder cost to determine since they all can be reused. Since the tools can be reused, their cost should be spread out across all items they are used for. With each use, they get a little bit worn out. For making just my felt heart, the tools would only cost ~$.010 as it is expected that they can be used many times over. Accounting for only the materials consumed by my heart and the degradation of the tools then the cost will be ~2.72.
About 2 and a half hours of my time went in to making this heart. There is an associated cost of labor that needs to be added to the total cost of the heart. I would consider this to have been a low skill job. The minimum wage in Texas is $7.25/hr. The skills to make the heart can be picked up pretty fast so I would say that a fair wage is about $10/hr. The cost of labor would then be $25.
The total cost of all that went into the heart is $27.72. Labor is the most expensive cost in the creation of the heart.
