The CPSIA and me

EDIT: See my post here for what happened next.

One major speed bump in the road ahead, for me, is the possible enforcement of the CPSIA. A major part of my current product line, and several of my future ideas, include products made for babies and children.

The project I am most proud of is my line of baby afghans. Borrowing a bit from my item description here, since it really states how I feel about them:

"When I began making baby afghans, my first goal was to provide a boy-friendly or unisex line of blankies. I noticed so many girlie items on the market, and not nearly enough for the fellas. Or for parents who want to raise their sons and daughters in a gender-neutral environment. Or for parents from other cultures where baby girls wear colors other than pink!

"My second goal was to provide easy care blankets with quality natural materials. Let’s face it, babies are messy little buggers, and there is no way an heirloom quality blanket would ever get used if it wasn’t machine washable. All my blankets are machine washable and most are dryer safe – all can be put in the dryer, but if you have concerns about shrinkage you can still hang dry them. In my experience, it’s hard enough to get the little one to let go of the blanket long enough to go through the wash, let alone long enough to air dry. Plus they stretch right back out with use.

"My niece Ella was the inspiration for what I believe is the best feature of my blanket sets – the mini taggie/lovey. Her great-grandma gave her a big baby afghan and a little one for her dolly. Ella decided to use the doll blanket as a mini version of the big one, for times when the big one was impractical. When she was small it was the perfect size to tuck in her lap in her bucket seat. If you ever need a replacement for the lovey, please send me a convo and I’ll see what I can do. (Ella’s formerly white & pastel 'little bicky' is now fairly grey!)"

So where's the problem? At this point, if I make any new blankets after February 10, I have to pay several thousands of dollars for lead testing. This testing would have to be completed on each type of blanket I make, most of which are completely unique, and it destroys the blanket. So far there have been a few exceptions made - certain "natural materials" such as cotton will be exempt, so long as they are in their natural undyed (?!) state. I have exactly one blanket that I could continue to make and sell.

Now, I'm all for safety in childrens products. Really, I am. If either of my nieces ingested lead from a toy or other product, I'd be furious at the manufacturer. But the fact is, by their very nature, none of my blankets contain lead. I'll still be allowed to sell my existing inventory, provided that none of the blankets contain lead, haha. If later testing revealed that they did, they would be classified as an unlawful hazardous substance, and I would face severe fines and possible criminal charges. I'm in no way concerned about that, since again, by their nature, none of my materials can possibly contain lead.

The thing that infuriates me here is that I'll no longer be allowed to make these perfectly safe, enjoyable, comforting products for the kids. This law cripples the entire industry of handmade childrens products, basically all of which are made to higher standards of quality than the mass-produced crapola. Charities will also be destroyed - Project Linus, for example, will not be able to continue. Every donation would be illegal, unless there are major changes to the way the law is applied.

The only real silver lining, here, is that the CPSC has an extremely limited number of people on staff to deal with enforcement. So, they're most likely not going to go after the "little guy", since it would be a waste of their limited resources. Still, I'm not one to blatantly break the law. Who would have thought we'd see a day when handmade toys would have to be sold on the black market? For now, I'm stitching my little fingers to the bone to finish creating blankets out of my existing materials by February 9th.