New
items are waiting for you at http://houseofstitches.com/whatsnew.cfm! We stitchers are always on the lookout for
new projects to add to our stash for future stitching. Stoney Creek and Leisure Arts both have new
books with wonderful Christmas stockings.
If you thought you missed getting Strawberry Fields Forever from
Blackbird Designs, you are in luck! It
has been reprinted. Patriotic charts are
well represented with new books from Blackbird Designs, Plum Street and Cross-Point
Designs.
I
recently read a blog post from my friend Deb at Stitches ‘n Things. She has given me permission to reprint it
here and she also credits Cathy from Needle in a Haystack for some of the
content. The needlework industry has
changed dramatically since I started at House of Stitches 29 years ago. I used to order from 2 or 3 companies every
week to get the majority of things that we sold. Now it seems like most of my time is spent
ordering, re-ordering, keeping track of backorders and trying to track down out
of print charts that are suddenly THE thing to stitch in all the on-line
groups. Deb explains things in a way
that I think will help you understand why it sometimes takes longer than we
would like to get you the supplies that you need.
I am
often asked why an item may take a while to be ordered and mailed.
In our industry, more than 99% of the vendors we deal with are small companies.
While we purchase Zweigart fabric and DMC and other threads, we don't deal
directly with them, but purchase through distributors here in the US. To put it
into context, my local bakery (Crust here in Fenton) has more employees than
most of the companies we purchase directly from.
Most are 1-2 people companies with a handful (Wichelt, Kreinik, Week's Dye
Works, Norden Crafts, Fleur de Paris) having maybe 6 to 10 employees. While
many cross-stitch designers also sell through one of the distributors that's
not true of most thread and fabric dyers. So when you place an order for say,
fabric from 4 different companies, threads from 6 more, a mug, a frame or a
couple of charts, chances are we have to order from 2-10 vendors.
Where orders with most vendors took 1-2 weeks, that has now changed to more
like 2-4 weeks and that's from the time we place the order. Our industry still
has not recovered to pre-2008 levels and that means all of us tightened our
belts. We are not able to carry as much stock as we once did nor can our
vendors or distributors. So a hand-dyer of threads or fibers might no longer
keep a deep inventory in stock but have to dye as needed, which means it can take
longer to get orders than it once did. Plus, they all have lives outside of our
industry and jury duty, an illness, a family emergency or even an unexpected
school holiday can throw a spanner in the works (designers do not have 'staff'
to fill in for them as they work out of their homes).
Some vendors we may only order from a few times a year; with many others once
or twice a month. And, the only distributors we order from "nearly"
every week are Hoffman, Norden, Wichelt and Yarn Tree. But they frequently have
to backorder items to us or tell us to reorder until their shipments are filled
(they have minimum order requirements to meet too from the manufacturers) and
arrive back in their warehouses.
Speaking of minimum ordering amounts ... some of our companies have set dollar
minimums we have to meet. until we have enough orders to meet their minimums,
we cannot place our orders. And, with the companies that do dying of fabric and
threads, they have to have enough yardage orders to dye a certain color before
they can make that dye bath up. When they do have that minimum requirement met,
those dye orders are then placed in queue to be dyed behind their existing
orders.
My hope in explaining this is that you'll have a better understanding of why
your orders don't magically appear and why it may take longer than you think it
should. If you have a deadline for a project, let us know when you place an
order and we can tell you if we think we can meet it. If not, we'll see if we
can help you find an alternate, or see if another shop might have what you
need. We are small industry and you would be surprised how many times we all
reach out to our fellow shop owners to find things we don't have in our stock!
With
that detailed explanation, just let me add that we appreciate your
understanding and continued business! We want everyone to have all of the supplies
that they need.
