Mega Wool Order
In November I decided I needed to order some more wool. No big surprise there! The bigger the order the more you save on shipping. I decided I would offer to order some wool for other members of my weavers and spinners guild. I was thinking maybe 20-25 pounds and I would make up the rest to get us to the 44 pound shipping rate. Well did I ever underestimate the response. I ended up with 168 pounds of wool to order.
The boxes came before Christmas no problem. then 2 came after Christmas. Customs decided to have a look in these. This is what one of the boxes looked like:
All the wool inside was fine. then it was on to sorting all the wool. the min order was 1 pound so first I sorted all the one pound bags. I borrowed my hubbies bread cooling racks to organise everything.
Then I had to separate orders. It’s a good thing we have a good scale.
It took the better part of a day to get it all sorted, Ross helped with sorting and then went off and made dinner while I finished. The next day my son and I checked and boxed all the orders so I could take them to the guild and deliver them. The nice thing about doing this was I got to see so many different wools. I got to feel yak and angora, fake and real cashmere and see many of the wonderful colours and the multicoloured wools the World of Wool has to offer. World of Wool was very nice and shipping was fast especially when I made the order so close to Christmas.
I must say that I couldn’t have done this so easily if it hadn’t been for the assistance of Jean. I can set up an excel file and make it sort things alphabetically but that’s it. She was a wiz with the spread sheet. She made it add things up at this way and that and separate out things and make my life a whole lot easier. I already have people asking If I will do it a gain later in the year. I think Jean and I should ask for a commission next time. :O)
14 thoughts on “Mega Wool Order”
Shop keeper for a day — wow! It had to be fun touching all the different breeds. Every time I go into the local yarn store to buy roving I’m always touching everything. Last time the store owner asked me if there was anything else, I said, “I want it all.” She laughed and replied, “that’s why I have the store.” That was a lot of work, a little commission should be in order. 🙂
yes it was like shop keeper for a day. I would have loved to have it all. I got my shipping much cheaper by having everyone’s order together so that was enough.
I am so excited when my wool orders arrive (I use WOW too) but receiving THAT much must be intimidating if not overwhelming. While I am envious of your getting to handle all the lovely fibres I don’t think I could resist the urge to make felt with it all…. I probably shouldn’t open a fibre shop :o/
It was exiting to get the wool. pulling all the wool out of the boxes and seeing all the colours, even all the different shades of white wool. I couldn’t even remember what I ordered as I had taken the opportunity to order some unusual wools like Herdwick and white-faced woodland.
It is a lot of work to sort a load of wool and until you’ve done it you just can’t imagine how long it takes (ask me how I know).
But as you say, it’s a bonus to see and handle some scrummy fibres!
It does take time, especially when you have to divide a bag between 3 or 4 people. and then finding the right place for each one. You can see I have lists hanging off the shelves so I could keep everyone’s wool together.
Recently I also ordered something form Wollknoll and the delivery was to be split between three people. I am talking about ten kilograms of different stuff but it took me whole afternoon for sorting things and checking against the receipt to find out that one item was missing although it appeared on the bill. I would prefer to make orders just for myself but on the other hand you save a lot on postage if it is shared.
yes I had a problem too but it was my fault. I order 1 pound of something twice and they only sent 1pound. I think they thought it was a mistake. I wish they had checked. They didn’t charge me for it so that was ok. I don’t think I would have wanted to do it with out my computer.
Bravo on sorting out the wool order! This story reminded me of when I used to manage the organic produce shares for a neighborhood group, twenty-five years ago. We had twenty subscribers in my group, and the deal was a weekly truck delivery of the produce to my house, with me then sorting out the turnips and black mission figs and butter lettuce into the 20 brown paper grocery bags.
For doing that, my “commission” was that I got my share at half price, so $14.00 a bag, rather than $28.00. At the time, I thought that was a good deal.
All that to say–in my opinion– you definitely need to either get a commission or a reduced price on your share!
I guess my benefit was getting cheap shipping. I hope Jean and I get some good karma too. Everyone that ordered was very good too, that makes a big difference.
I think I would have loved that and hated that in equal amounts 🙂
It took me about an hour the other day just to separate and put away about 8 different colours and add some samples to my notebook. It takes a bit longer now since they started using codes on the labels. I bet the smell was gorgeous 🙂
I didn’t get codes on mine. It would be nice if they used both. I need to bet back to organising , I haven’t put my wool away yet.
Wow! So much wool – it is like a short story…no wonder why you are familiar with the wholesale info for Europa! Yes, you should receive some kindnesses from your friends in addition to the good karma.
It was a lot of wool. everyone seemed happy with their purchases. It will be fun to see what everyone makes.