I swear, I am having the worst kind of luck with shipping lately! It is so frustrating, and makes for very boring blog material. I swear - I'm not usually such a pathetic whiner in real life (or am I?!).
Maybe my experience lately is made more acute by the strong contrasts in the two companies that I've ordered yarn from for the Hexagon Blanket. I started out at Jimmy Beans Wool, where I ordered something like 18 balls of Jaeger Matchmaker. I placed the order on a Tuesday, mid-morning. In the afternoon I got a call from a very nice lady at JBW (regretfully don't remember her name) to let me know that one of the colors that I wanted was out of stock. While she had me on the phone, she wandered around the shop (or inventory, or whatever) searching for substitute yarns and colors. As she made suggestions, I was on their web site checking out what she was coming up with. We agreed to try a lime-green shade of Rowan Wool Cotton, which she gave me at no extra cost (it was twice as much as the Jaeger). She shipped out the box THAT DAY, and it arrived on my doorstep on Thursday. Fantastic service! Free shipping, and it was super-fast! Even their regular shipping charge is only $4! While some of the colors were not what I expected, and the Wool Cotton isn't going to work out, I accept that risk as a part of ordering yarn online. There is no substitute for going to the shop and picking it out in person. Anyway, Jimmy Beans Wool = Fantastico!
Since I needed a few more colors and had thoroughly picked over the Jimmy Beans site, I Googled for the Matchmaker and for Rowan Pure Wool DK, which is another good yarn for the project. I landed at The Knitting Garden, where the Matchmaker was on sale (score!) and the Pure Wool was not (fine - I'll still take it). I placed an order for 3 balls of Matchmaker and 5 balls of Pure Wool on Monday (but admittedly after hours on the east coast). I expected to get a notice about the shipment in the next day or two, since it says on the KG home page that "All in stock merchandise shipped within 24 - 48hrs." On MONDAY (that's four business days later, and all weekend spent wondering) I got an email from The Knitting Garden informing me that two of the three balls of Matchmaker were out of stock, but that the order had shipped via UPS on Friday. No phone call about possible substitutes. No tracking number for the shipment. I emailed back and courteously asked about a tracking number (since the package was coming all the way from Massachusetts and I wanted to stalk it across the country). I still haven't heard back, so I guess that the answer is "No tracking number for you!" I keep hoping that the UPS man will drop off the package, but he rolled on by the house today without so much as letting off of the gas pedal. Hmphf. [BTW - one of the colors (865) is still available on the web site - go order it just for fun and tell me what happens!].
Maybe I have become too spoiled by some online companies, but there are certain things that I expect from any good Internet-based company:
1. Tracking information for shipments, whether they are UPS, FedEx, USPS, or ShipYourShit.com. I want to know where my yarn is, and I want to know NOW.
2. I'd really like to be able to log into my account on the company's web page, and track the status of my order. Has it shipped? How many balls did I order again? After I placed my order at KG and waited so many days to hear back, I was really wondering WTF?!
3. If something is out of stock, I expect an email or phone call to see if I would like to purchase something else. That is why I filled in my phone number on the ordering page, right? Give me an option, any option, when my order won't be fulfilled as expected. What if my order had been useless without those two balls of yarn? Since KG informed me of the situation AFTER the order had shipped, I couldn't have done anything except ship it back after the fact, probably at my own expense. Again, WTF?!
Now, I'm not trying to rip the Knitting Garden a new one or anything, but they've got some serious room for improvement. Who wants to wait almost two weeks for yarn?! The stuff I got on eBay from Newcastle, UK got here faster than that! I just want to start crocheting, dammit!
This whole thing is almost enough to get me into my car, into the Seattle traffic, and down to the multitude of local shops where I could have probably found what I needed. The horror...the horror... Okay - End Of Rant.
<<deep breaths>>
On the bright side, the book with the pattern did arrive while we were backpacking this weekend!
YAY! There is one photo of the blanket inside (wish there were more), and the pattern is neatly and concisely laid out on a single page. I was able to figure out the pattern from the diagram without any problems, but thank god for Alex's tutorial on how to join the hexagons. That will come in very handy when the rest of my yarn finally gets here.
I crocheted hexagons in each of my hook sizes (sorry for the night-time photo):
It's amazing the difference that one millimeter can make in the size of a hexagon! That's 5mm on the left, 4mm on the right. The larger hexagon feels loftier and softer to the touch, but the smaller one was less fiddly to work and the stitches are more even. I think I'll go with the 4mm hook. Still not sure about all of the colors, but I will trust Alex when she says that colors that you don't like won't be noticeable among so many that you do like. Okay - off to work a few more hexas!
