Comments on: A Small Rant about Needlepoint Kits

By: marianne

marianne — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 06:06:50 +0000

I agree with Sue, and this does not necessarily apply to just Needlepoint Kits. As consumers all we have is the decision where to spend our money (what honest retailers get it, which misleading ones do not) and complaint letters.

I often write complaint letters, some are responded to, some are not.

I have some basic rules when shopping. For clothes, if they have a no return or store credit only policy, I do not shop there. If there is no 3-way mirror, I do not shop there.

It is hard sometimes, to know who is honest and who is not. A needlepoint store in Durham, NC once sold me (when I was something of a novice) their entire stock of Anchor #5 beige floss (9 boxes of 12 each) telling me I would need this much to stitch the background of a 14 X 14 inch canvas.

I still, many years later, have lots and lots of this floss left.
What I did not know was, they were getting out of the needlepoint business, going pure knitting.

This story is not as uncommon as you might think. We have to be advocates as well as consumers.

By: sue sulle

sue sulle — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:04:53 +0000

A thousand years ago, well maybe not that long ago…I spent 2 years of my life try to keep a cross stitch design company honest. Their kits contained the minimum supplies and when I questioned this practice was told that Hobby Craft Associations published facts that 75% of all craft kits purchased are never started…they are impluse buys. I disagreed with this as far as needlework crafts went but the pracice continued. If was easier to send a letter of apology, the requested thread, and sometimes (if I handled the letter) we would include another kit. Of the thousands of kits we sold, we only received about 7% requests. So it is our responsiblitity as consumers to make these kit manufactures responsible for their products by: #1 requesting left out or inadaquate supplies and #2 make that manufacture’s name known…someone else may think it only happened in their kit. I don’t purchase many kits but if I do and it is short/missing I make the manufacturer aware and expect them to make the short/missing supplies good.

By: Carol

Carol — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:03:46 +0000

I completely agree with you–if you buy a kit, you should be able to stitch the piece that is shown in the packaging without having to purchase additional supplies or raiding your stash. Sounds like a really bad experience.

However, I think your post would be much more powerful if you would have included the name of the company and the kit (yes, I’m curious about who would put together such a kit, and I bet I’m not the only one…). Maybe you got a kit that was an anomoly, but maybe there are other kits out there with the same problem. I know it’s not always pleasant, or even the right thing, to name names. But in some cases it can help people identify a problem and correct it.

By: Pierrette

Pierrette — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:28:50 +0000

Janet,

It would be helpful if you were to give us their name so that we can decide whether we want to stay clear of them or not

I would not be a happy camper either if it had happened to me.

Pierrette =^..^=

By: KD

KD — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:57:01 +0000

I was not so reticent in mentioning a kit with a model that did not match the pattern at all.

http://threadsofdesire.blogspot.com/2008/09/moving-on.html

This was, of course, after much correspondence with the company and investigation if other people felt as I did. My current post is about a kit that contains threads of such a close color that I can’t tell what should be stitched where. I hate to give up on kits as they are so handy for traveling projects, but when you pull your own fabric and threads at least you do know what you are facing.