When Indy dyers go bad...

So those of you who follow me on Twitter will be aware that I've had a bundle of fibre take rather longer than I'd hoped to turn up at my door, and indeed at the time of writing this it still hasn't. As I said to someone who asked I'm not going to outright name and shame (yet! This may change if I get messed about much more though) as the matter is now being resolved, or at least I hope it is.

So what happened I hear you ask? Through social networks various I became aware of a dyer offering a limited time deal, had a look on their site, liked what I saw and put in an order. Nothing much of a controversial nature there I thought. That would be my first mistake then. Whereas places like Etsy are only supposed to allow you to list stuff you actually have ready for sale, this dyer has their own site and it turned out that they a) received way more orders than anticipated and b) had consequently taken orders for stock they simply didn't have dyed and ready to send.

Grouch 1 - I don't mind waiting for you to dye my order but I do mind only finding out that is the case several days after placing my order!

Ok so they're dying it the Monday after I place my order, irritating but not a problem, and I duly followed the progress on Twitter. Kind of hoped it would turn up by the end of the following week as I would be demonstrating spinning, and face it nice bright stuff pulls people in far better than dull white fleece. No such luck. Ok must be the Jubilee weekend messing up the post methinks. I'll give it to later in the week. Wednesday comes and goes, Thursday arrives and still nothing. No parcel, no email, no nothing and from Twitter I know said dyer is now deep in Woolfest prep.

Grouch 2 - please don't broadcast to the world all the fun you're having doing other stuff when you have paid for orders still outstanding, it does not make your customer base feel loved!

Ok so by Thursday and knowing they were busy now on other stuff I finally cracked and sent a chasing email. By this point it had been 17 days since I'd put my order in. Now in fairness I did get a response, an out of office email obviously set weeks earlier and no longer relevant. Hmm gave that one about 24hrs, by which point they knew about the problem with the out of office and had stated on Twitter that they're working through their backlog. Ok I think, I'll get an email soon saying where the holdup etc is (to be honest at this point I was still fully expecting to be told that it had been sent and that Royal Mail were making a mess of deliveing it, how wrong was I?!?). Instead, nada.

Ok two seemingly ignored emails, no delivery and over 48hrs later I thought I'd send a slightly more direct email, this time not just asking for an update but pointing out how long I'd been waiting. Being completely fair etc that did get a response.

It will be in the post for you on Monday. It's ready and packed.

I will email when it's on the way for you.

Please accept my apologies.

That was it. No "Dear Mindfulknits" or salutation of any description which is frankly rude in my book regardless of the preceding events, unless being sent between friends etc... this person does not fit into that category. Now it could just be me being a miserable so and so but I was distinctly less than impressed with it as an answer. Ok I now know that it is being posted three weeks after I ordered it, but there is no explanation as to why, no reference made to the fact I had to repeatedly contact them to get this measly answer. I don't know how anyone else reads it, but to me it says they're glad to take my money, will get my order to me when they can be bothered and beyond that couldn't give a rodent's behind for concepts such as courtesy or customer service.

Grouch 3 - manners cost nothing and can go a long way to repair a poor customer experience

In short, unless (when) this stuff turns up it spins like butter and is dyed to perfection I won't be ordering from this dyer again. Life is too short for bad fleece and Indy dyers that don't have a basic level of respect for their customers!

Oh and if it isn't waiting for me when I get home on Tuesday I am naming names! You have been warned!

PS for the sake of clarity etc I am not talking about any of the fabulous dyers etc listed on the right of this site, you guys are all amazing :D

A very crafty jubilee weekend!

For reasons various I'd invited my little sister to come down to visit me over the jubilee weekend and wow did we ever get some serious crafting done! Having been very close as kids, but now living almost at opposite ends of the country, crafting in its various forms is the one thing I can guarantee we can both enjoy whatever life may be throwing at us.

So first up was a visit to Millers Ark farm for their jubilee party. I'd volunteered to demo spinning weeks before but little sis was ok with a day of chilling out surrounded by very cute baby animals. Brilliantly a couple of ladies from the Hampshire Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers joined us so we had three wheels running plus my drop spindles. By the end of the day I'd mostly got my carding technique more or less there, and my longdraw was getting reasonably consistent.... bobbin one of I have no idea for the Kelmscott Throw

The only down side of the day was that the Shetlands being sheared really didn't want their fleece to go. It was still a little early for them, the lanolin hadn't risen, and the shearer was having to really fight to get the fleece off. All in all a recipe for lots and lots of second cuts so I sadly passed on asking to buy one. Beautiful to touch but life is too short to mess about with poor fleece.

After a full day on the farm, demoing, spinning (little sis even managed to get some viable not too think and thin by the end of the day), eating cream tea and generally chilling out, we headed home for white wine and general late night chatting.

 

Having done our patriotic bit on the Saturday we elected for a lazy morning before a quick google brought up a free hand-piecing class just outside Andover. A fast lunch etc and we were in the car and ready to go. As luck would have it we managed to squeeze into the class which was fantastic (who said you need to plan these things!). I'll post up details for where/when etc when I have them to hand but for now I can say we worked on an Ohio Star using scraps of material that Meg (the teachers/shop owner) provided. Little sis went for a complicated jubilee themed square, carefully lining up the patterns on the material provided. I really wasn't that fussed so plumped for a simple teal and grey...

Not bad for a first attempt I thought. Each of the squares is about 10cm across and I got it to mostly lined up. Now me being me I'd a) bought a bunch of fat quarters with the intention of making some more project bags as the one I made a month back is proving very useful and b) I promptly bit off waaaay more than I could chew on a new idea for a project. My cunning idea is to make a hand pieced project bag, a little more sophisticated than the one I'm currently using, with pockets for a couple of spare DPNs, a pattern, stitch markers... oh and my Oyster card given I normally end up shoving it in with my knitting rather than put it away somewhere sensible. With that lot in mind I came up with the following hand-pieced section:

Don't ask how long that has taken me up to now, but to give an idea of scale etc the squareish sections are about 3cm across and the whole thing is only 16ish cm tall. Now I just need to make it 50 cm long before I can start turning it into a bag! Should be ready about Christmas time at a guess...

Monday sadly saw little sis have to head back home, but not to miss a crafting chance we swung by the Beadworks in London to get some embelishments for her now new hand-pieced cushion! Three days, three technically different crafts can't be bad :)

On a separate but important note though, I got the Ostara Twisted Flower socks finished :D

Here's to having a crafty weekend!