For my Dad’s 60th, I made him a pair of tank slippers. And they were frickin’ awesome.

Naturally, I showed them off to a lot of people before I gifted them. Friends. Workmates. Random people in the street (okay, maybe not). Each time I got the same reaction – a moment of ‘oh those are cool’ followed by ‘no way, you made them?’ and the general admittance that they were indeed frickin’ awesome. A few people also commented that I should make them to sell.

Which is so economically insensible I struggled to answer politely.

These babies were incredibly time consuming. There’s at least ten hours in the sewing up alone. The crocheting of the pieces easily tripled that number and even then that’s a vast underestimate. Working at minimum wage, that’s $500. The cost of yarn adds another $70, and again I’m underestimating.

These slippers are what they had in mind when they coined the phrase ‘A Labour of Love’. My Dad is probably the only person I would make these for and, as corny as it sounds, his appreciation of these – expressed in the instant ripping off of his current slippers and the putting on of these in a gleeful manner only matched by a child of six – was worth vastly more than 30 hours of my time and ten balls of yarn.

Labour of Love projects are half labour – counting nearly every frickin’ row, struggling through the crochet pattern, and then doing it twice – and half love – the joy of meeting a challenge, watching them come to life and the gifting itself. And while labour can be measured and bought, love can’t; thus every Labour of Love is priceless.