On August 18 I placed an order for two smaller Châtelaine kits from the European Cross Stitch Company. On my order, I tried to add an extra piece of fabric for another project. I got an automated reply that my order had been recieved, but I got no confirmation or price for my special request. I also did not receive the PDF charts I had ordered for a long time. As I felt that I wanted some feedback on my order I contacted the European Cross Stitch Company with some questions. I got a swift and friendly reply where Cindy told med that they don’t process orders for charts before the rest of the order is ready to send out, and that my extra piece of fabric had been added to my order.
Two things confuse me about this practice:
1. Most, if not all, Châtelaines calls for DMC threads as well as all the special materials. You can find the required materials on the Internet, but I would prefer to look at the actual chart when ordering these threads to avoid errors. As I live in one of the most expensive countries in the world I usually order materials online, and when the materials for a Châtelaine finally arrive I want to be ready to start. It takes a while for an Internet order to arrive, so I want to place it as soon as possible.
2. When I make a special request on an order I really want a confirmation that it has been received, whether it is possible to fulfill and the price, even if I don’t ask for this specifically.
The whole point of this rant was actually to say that I received my two PDFs in my inbox on September 15! I assume this means that my materials have been shipped from the European Cross Stitch Co. (no e-mail with information about this either). I didn’t want to pay for the express delivery, so I don’t expect a tracking number, but a “Your package has been shipped”-e-mail would have been nice. Anyway, I read through all the instructions carefully and tried to figure out the pattern at once. I can’t wait for the materials to arrive. Normally this takes from 1 to 3 weeks: 1 week in the USA, 1 day to cross the Atlantic and an unknown amount of time at customs. When it clears customs the package should be at my post office the next day.