What Is Going On in the Yarn World

There has been an interesting development involving a yarn dyer that I want to write about, but won’t name, because this post is about the dynamics, gas-lighting, lies and assumptions that are being made on all sides, and how this actually affects future purchasing decisions.

Currently, this person is being talked about on Ravelry, Reddit, and Twitter as well as individual accounts on Instagram.

Basically this dyer has been taking money for orders and then not fulfilling the orders. Apparently, she has always been a slow/delayed shipper but now it has come to the point of nothing being shipped while still taking money for subscription boxes. These have been an especial problem because the next quarter’s payment has been taken before the original delivery date of the current quarter’s box so subscribers have paid for two boxes without being aware there is a problem and that they are not going to get anything.

Of course, customers started to ask when they could expect to receive their order and were told that it would be coming, they were inundated, packing will happen this weekend, most of them went out, etc. etc. -  basically string customers along. And this is when it caught the attention of the wider internet because customers were not getting what they ordered and wondered if they were the only one – turns out they weren’t by a long way.

But this is where it gets interesting, plenty of evidence that orders are not being fulfilled but people are defending her. The head of a large company posted about not casting aspersions on businesses that were trying to do the right thing while dealing with supply chain issues, a supporter denied the truth of the spreadsheet of unfulfilled orders as there were no receipts, another supporter called a person a knitler because they weren’t content to wait for their order.

In the be aware threads, there is occasional speculation, “I wonder if”, a poster then repeats it as a definite, this gets picked up by a different medium and suddenly it is fact.

Also I have noticed people who like to make fun of what is going on screenshot individual posts from various mediums that are taken out of context and get their rabid fan base riled up over the content. This is rather funny, seeing people getting their knickers in a twist over a post that is taken completely out of context or involves an inside joke.

But how does this affect future purchasing? Obviously, people are not going to buy from the person who is currently in trouble, but they are also put off purchasing from the rabid supporters. The ones who come into discussions with all guns blazing because they want to stop anything bad being said about their friend/acquaintance. Regardless of how loudly or quietly you have been supportive, if you don’t come back and say sorry I was wrong or sorry I did not know, you have alienated many future purchasers. Other dyers are affected as it makes people very wary of purchasing online directly from dyers. Especially as in many of the cases of problematic dyers, purchasers are told they are ordering yarn that is in stock, which later turns out to be untrue. So how can you trust any dyer that says yarn is in stock?

The repercussions of a problematic dyer ripples out to many in the crafting industry.