How we’re doing

The shop was pretty quiet for the first few months of this year but has picked up a bit recently (hooray!) as the colder weather sets in. I suspect many people aren’t leaving home for anything but absolute necessities – and browsing for the next craft project doesn’t quite make that grade! We know too that a good number of our customers are isolating at home because they have, or a family member has, covid. I sincerely hope they recover fully. My son contracted a bad case of covid in the second week of a 10 week tour of Australia with his 6 person musical/comedy/theatre troupe, which is named A Slightly Isolated Dog. (I’m sure that has some deep inner meaning.) Anyway, four of them caught covid and they had to cancel a week of sold-out performances in Melbourne. (They were more than Slightly Isolated as it turned out!) And they’ve had to take it easy since, doing lots of sleeping when not performing to cope with their ongoing tiredness.

On the bright side, our online sales are up - and our courier bill has more than doubled as a result. The only time our online sales were better was during level 3 of the 2020 lockdown when Gemma and I spent all day every day packing literally hundreds of orders.

Don’t forget that you can shop with us online, and you can always email or phone us to ask questions about stock and put in an order that way – and we can do a contactless hand-over at the shop or courier your goods out to you.

With fewer customers in the shop, Jess and I, who are on duty Tuesday to Friday - with help from Vincent as needed, have been upgrading our stock systems, improving the website and researching possible new stock. The supply shortages, delivery delays and price increases we’re experiencing make daily life a bit challenging – and I’ve had to make some hard calls about stock lines we won’t keep because their relatively slow turnover and increased prices don’t justify their shelf-space in our small shop. The yarns we have on sale are either in that category or have been discontinued by their supplier/manufacturer. So if you buy yarn on sale make sure you buy enough for your project!

Classes – July to September timetable coming soon!

Despite covid, our excellent menu of classes has been well subscribed and the next schedule is in preparation right now. We have a strict policy of mask wearing in class and refunding anyone with symptoms that could be covid (so they’re not tempted to attend) and that seems to be working to keep everyone healthy.

One of our new offerings is the smocking class with Mary Clark, and it’s excellent! I attended the premiere of this 3-session class, having bought a pleating machine to share with the class. I’d had no idea there is a fast and accurate alternative to smocking dots until Mary demo’ed her pleater to me and then pointed out there was one for sale one on Trademe – which I bought for $200! Getting spare needles for it wasn’t so easy but I’ve imported some from Australia and will guard them closely (they‘re expensive!).

Our 7 person class had 3 pleaters to use, which made the first part of the smocking class a breeze. And from there, it was good fun learning the main stitches and how to incorporate a smocked piece in a garment. Thanks to a very generous customer who used to be a smocking pattern tester, I have a great collection of magazines (long out of print) full of smocking tips and tricks and patterns for garments that incorporate smocking. Those who do our class are very welcome to borrow these. There is another 3 session class on offer at the end of June and it has spaces!

For those who can smock already and would like to have their fabric pleated, rather than doing the time-consuming dotty thing, one of our customers is keen to use my machine to do it for you – for a fee. We think $2 a line with a $10 minimum fee might be fair, to cover my customer’s time and maybe give me some return on my investment – bearing in mind that it’ll be saving the smocker considerable time and fiddly effort!

New stock!

I’m constantly ordering new fabrics – dressmaking fabrics and quilting/craft cottons – and it’s always exciting when they arrive. Often I’ve ordered them months earlier so have forgotten all about them until I open the parcel. Would you believe that I was shown, and asked to order, some Christmas 2022 fabrics before we’d had Christmas 2021? That’s extreme but most of our (limited number of) NZ fabric suppliers gather pre-orders from their retailers before confirming their own orders from overseas manufacturers – which makes commercial sense for them.

Among our latest dress fabric additions are corduroys, ginghams and wools and wool blends. One of my fave dress fabric suppliers managed to get overseas again recently to buy in lots of high quality new fabrics and they will be landing in NZ soon and (some of them) in Kilbirnie soon after!

Sewing machines, overlockers and more

One area of the shop most affected by short supplies and delivery delays is the machine “department”. The Janome Coverpro 3000P made a brief appearance in NZ a few months ago (we were allocated 2 of the initial shipment and they sold quickly) and we’ve been waiting for more ever since. Four have finally arrived. (Coverseam, or coverstitch, machines are the ones that do that neat parallel line of stitches on the hem or neckline of your knit garments, t-shirts etc. They hem and neaten the raw edges at the same time.)

I’ve also been waiting months for the Janome air-threading overlocker AT2000D. Two have just arrived and one has sold already.

Recently it took over 3 weeks for an order of machines stored in an Auckland warehouse to be delivered to us – by which time we’d completely run out of two of our most popular models. These things are frustrating but I remind myself that we are jolly lucky to be having only these issues when others, in NZ and especially overseas, are experiencing far more serious problems.

Mostly, the machines we sell are priced under $2000 but we do sell a good number with prices up to $5000. Janome has just released an embroidery/sewing machine that retails for some $23,000 but we won’t be stocking it - for space and $$ reasons!

As I’ve mentioned before, some machine prices have increased by up to 20%, mostly because freight from overseas is way more expensive these days. To ensure we have a good selection of less expensive machines, I’m now stocking Janome’s top mechanical machines, which are in the $700 to $800 price bracket. They supplement our Singer “Heavy Duty” mechanicals in the same price range, and the less expensive entry level mechanicals (Janomes and Singers) that suit beginner sewists and those who want a machine just for mending and very basic sewing.

We prefer the digital machines, whose starting prices are now mostly about $1000, for their ease of use and fantastic range of functions (eg automatic buttonholes, push button knot tying, push button top and bottom thread cutting, stretch stitches, 6 or more standard feet and many optional extra feet for eg rolled hemming, free motion quilting, invisible zipping etc etc). I always enjoy it when someone with an old machine that they’re very attached to but which is playing up – or has given up – tries one of our new digital machines. Amazement! Joy! The looks on their faces and exclamations of delight are very amusing. It just proves that we don’t know what we’re missing till we try it!

Wool, yarn, patterns

The prices of many yarns and knitting pattern booklets have also risen lately. With some of the more prolific and reliable pattern designers being overseas (employed by eg Shepherd, Patons and Rowan), again, increased freight costs are mostly responsible for the price rises. I try to absorb price increases but with so many of our goods now affected, I simply can’t afford not to pass on some of the extra costs. Occasionally I hear customers complain about the cost of pattern booklets and I remind them that if they like 3 or 4 patterns in a booklet and will make them at some point, the cost is the same as 3 or 4 leaflets, and a leaflet is the price of 2 cups of coffee and lasts way longer! Or as a regular customer said recently, “I’d much rather have a local wool shop here in 5 years time than have it go under because you didn’t raise your prices to meet rising costs.” (Thanks for that LB.)

More and more, our yarn suppliers are having difficulty keeping sufficient stock of all their lines to meet all NZ retailers’ needs. Even the yarns produced in NZ can have shortages so we encourage customers not to play yarn roulette when you buy but to get what the pattern calls for (or what we can estimate it needs if you aren’t following a pattern exactly!) and ask us to keep a spare ball aside for you, just in case. We don’t offer a wool layby service these days - just the security of an extra 100 metres or so of the yarn you’ve chosen. And we do ask that you let us know if you don’t need the yarn we’ve kept aside for you. Otherwise we get left with “orphan” balls of a batch that is no longer current so have to discount them.

Craft news

We’ve bought in some punch needle kits and tools: we’re told it’s all the rage! Some of our customers buy wool or DMC threads to do their own punch needle designs and have talked to me about how they got into it, through online courses or videos. What we have are learner kits suitable for kids or adults with pre-printed designs (mainly llamas!) together with the tools and hoops that are needed. On a quiet day in the shop Jess and I might attempt to make up one of the kits, using Youtube as our tutor.

New ideas!

If you’re interested in knitting toys or dog coats, we’ve partnered with WCC’s library to have several books on those topics in the shop for you to borrow. The current lot have to be returned to the library in August. Let us know what other sorts of books you’d like us to get in.

Make sure to tag Wellington Sewing Centre in any Instagram posts you do of the things you’ve made with our wool or fabric or other stock. And if you like our Facebook posts, please share them! Publicity is key to our success and amazingly there are still plenty of people who don’t know that the shop exists but who we are sure would visit us or our website if only they knew!

Thank you

for your continued support of our lovely shop and us. We’ve been very touched by gifts of easter eggs, home baking and even figs soaked in port (wheeee) recently! And we’ve been gifted some collections of no-longer-needed buttons and fabrics and wool and knitting needles and patterns, which we sort and find good homes for. These are all reasons why we love what we do!

Stay warm – Jo, Robyn, Jess, Toni, Annie, Vincent and Cerys