Prices Changing While on a Waiting List

Something happened this week that has been bothering me and I talked about it with someone in my knitting group this morning. Her reaction seemed even stronger than mine, so I feel that I have a right to be a little upset, but then I thought I would also blog about it to see if anyone else had any reactions/suggestions.

Basically, I placed an order for some items back at the end of October. There was a waiting list (7 months). The seller raised prices at the beginning of March. My place in the waiting list just came up. I'm being charged the raised prices rather than the prices from when I placed my order (I did ask the seller to be sure that was what was happening and indeed it is). So should the seller have honored the original prices from when I placed my order or is the seller justified in charging the higher prices? (Note that there is no information about pricing and the waiting list in the seller's policies.)

A few more details and my thoughts:
In October I decided to place an order for DyakCraft Darn Pretty needles (there's also a waiting list for these and when the price increased in January, anyone who placed an order before then was given the lower price and not the increased price). In checking out the fan group on Ravelry, I noticed that one etsy seller was recommended over and over again as making awesome cases and focused quite a bit on the DyakCraft needles.

I checked out the seller's etsy shop and also looked around on etsy for other options. I decided that I really did like these seller's cases and placed an order. Although there were some pre-made cases for sale with fabric that I thought was okay, I decided that at this price point, I should do a custom case and choose my own fabric. That was when I discovered the long waiting list for the cases. I went ahead with my order since I knew I'd be waiting for the needles anyway and didn't really need the case sitting around for months without any needles to put in it. I chose fabric (kittens and yarn) and sent it to the seller and settled in to wait.

Along the way, I placed orders for more DyakCraft needles -- a full set of DPNs and a set of mini straight needles, so I asked if I could add cases for those to my custom order (I had sent tons of fabric). This was in February (still before the price increase). No problems. The seller really is helpful and quick to respond.

Then I got a message this week that my turn in the queue is about to come up and the seller wanted to know if there were any changes in my needle inventory since we last spoke (in other words, did I still want the cases I had listed or did I want to make some changes). I was still good with the cases we had discussed (5 cases total--one for the multiple sets of interchangeables, one for DPNs, one for the straights, and two mini cases for the DyakCraft Heavy Metals). I wanted to make sure I wasn't going too far over my budget so I asked about prices (I was considering whether to get the interchangeable case to hold 4 sets or if I wanted a bigger one to hold 6 sets). The seller sent a price list--with prices updated and effective from March 1. (I did see in March that the seller increased prices but I don't remember that the seller indicated that those in the queue with custom orders would be paying the increased prices.)

I was a little taken aback and messaged the seller something along the lines of "Hey, I had assumed that since I was in the queue well before the price increase that I would be paying the previous price and not the new. You know what they say about assumptions--so I just wanted to clarify that my cases are at the increased prices." And I got something back along the lines of "I'd like to say yes to the previous prices but my costs have gone up so yes, you have to pay the new prices." I totally understand increases in cost, but from a customer service standpoint this does seem like a good practice.

You might be wondering how much this price increase is. What are we really talking here? Well, the interchangeables case went up by $11 and the DPN and straight cases each went up by $8. That's a pretty significant price increase, especially when you add them together.

So I'm torn. Part of me wants to say, "Please just send my fabric to me and cancel my order." I'm worried that after this experience, every time I look at the cases, I'll think about this and it will leave a bad taste in my mouth. What I had been so much looking forward to is a little spoiled. (Another part of that is that I'm second guessing my fabric choice. I know I'll still like it but I think there are other fabrics now that I would like better.) But instead I've just cut down on my order (I'm not getting the two mini cases for the Heavy Metals--I almost cut out the straights case but I won't be getting a case for those from DyakCraft so I do actually need one). I have looked around at other cases and sellers and I truly do think that this seller is doing exactly what I want and no one else is, so in the long run I will be happier with these cases.

So I guess I'll go ahead with my smaller order and try to just enjoy the cases. But I won't be buying from this seller again (which is sad since she does make a good product) and I won't recommend her to anyone else. (I won't badmouth her--note that I'm not naming the seller here--but I won't praise either.) I just wish this experience wasn't leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

What do you think? Do I have a reason to be at least a little upset or not?

Among the Bluebonnets

Being back in Texas means that at the start of spring, the beautiful Texas bluebonnets can be seen all over the place--but usually on the sides of highways. It seems almost cliche to take pictures in a patch of bluebonnets but the cliche is also quite beautiful. But it's hard to consider taking pictures of a two-year-old boy on the side of a busy road!

So I've been trying to find some bluebonnets in a better location so I could get pictures of Luke. Last week when I was driving to my mom's house I noticed some bluebonnets in a field close to her house that I thought I would go back and check out later.

Along comes one of the gals from my knitting group with an idea--let's take a picture of our group to send to The Loopy Ewe to put up on their wall of knitters. Where should we take a picture? Well, how about among bluebonnets? And one of the suggested locations was just that field I had noticed a few days prior (and that is where we ended up).

We had a fun photo session and got some nice shots. We were missing several regulars but I'm glad that we were able to get these pictures:

Yesterday I went back to that field with Luke and got some pictures of him. The skies were cloudy and overcast which actually made for pretty decent lighting. And I had fun using my new camera. So now I have some lovely shots of my two-year-old son among bluebonnets without having to worry about him running off into traffic!

First Paid Pattern Released

I released my first paid pattern this morning--Lyonet. Am excited to have it live but also nervous to see if other people like it (my test knitters did, so there is hope!) and actually want to buy it and knit it.

I've spent a good chunk of today working on releasing the pattern. Then I announced it in a couple of places on Ravelry, started a new group on Facebook for KarenDawn Designs, started a new group on Ravelry, worked on banners and graphics for each place, and now I'm working on getting my Etsy shop back into shape.

Now if only I had Dreamweaver and Photoshop on my current computer. Alas, I cannot find the CD with the program. So I have had to dig out my previous laptop (which is ginormous compared to the one I'm using now!) and use it to update my website and edit my photos. Such as pain. I really need to find that disk! (Or maybe if my patterns sell well, I can save up enough money to buy the most recent versions of the programs.)

As of this writing, my hat pattern has been favorited 10 times. That's exciting!

The Social History of American Knitting

On Thursday, I went to Half Price Books, mostly looking for stitch dictionaries. I didn't find any of those that I don't already have, but I did find another book that sounded quite interesting: No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting by Anne L. Macdonald. The copyright is 1988, so it doesn't cover more recent developments in knitting, but I thought that it sounded like a good read.

The place of knitting in the world today is a conversation that seems to be occurring all over the place. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (the Yarn Harlot) in her talk at the DFW Fiber Fest covered the ideas that non-knitters have about knitters and how the reality (obviously) is quite different. She also talked about what we as knitters can do to help correct misconceptions. A recent article about knitting (which spawned the #ANDknitting movement) stated that knitters are women with too much time on their hands and that the recent resurgence in knitting is due to celebrity knitters (and the article was not talking about the Yarn Harlot--it mentioned Kate Moss and Kate Middleton). Yes, I'm sure that the many knitters today are just doing it because Kate Moss does (I didn't even know that she did!).

Over and over it seems that articles about knitting mention this resurgence in knitting. But knitting hasn't ever gone away. What is has done is changed a bit: for example, knitting seems to be more about the process and recreation than a necessity to clothe a family and social media especially Ravelry has allowed knitters to connect even more than they have in the past.

With all of these current conversations in mind, I started the introduction to the No Idle Hands book. The author starts with discussing a questionnaire that she had knitters answer to find out their thoughts about knitting and she lists some of the responses.

One of those questions was "Why do you think more women than men knit?" I was interested to read some of these responses, especially as it still seems that people assume all knitters are women. In my local knitting group, we do have an active male knitter and he has often discussed the lack of patterns designed for men. In fact, in a recent Facebook post, he called out one knitting magazine in particular and chastised it for not incorporating any designs for men at all. And these survey responses highlight the stereotypes that have existed, and I think still exist, about men--not just for knitting but in general.

Here are some of the responses:

"Men are too restless to sit still."
"In this part of the country, boys play football; they do not knit."
"They can't tell their right hands from their left unless they are holding a screwdriver."
"Men are more comfortable in their workshops."
"They don't really think much about clothes."

Sadly, I think that if the author conducted her survey today, many of the responses would be similar. What a disservice this does to men! And what a disservice to knitting. If we are going to change attitudes of the public perception about knitting, perhaps we need to start with our own attitudes about knitting, which includes how we feel about who is doing the knitting.

Some of the other survey responses dealt with reasons why knitters knit. Some things again are very similar to what they would be today, but there are something things that I think have changed a LOT! For example, one respondent wrote, "I wasn't about to pay $350 for a sweater I could make for my $30!" Ha ha! It's seems quite the other way around now--a sweater in a store would be $30 and it would be easy to get in the hundreds of dollars for the yarn to knit a sweater. So there are some things that have changed!