We sent this out on Tuesday via our newsletter list, here's an update on how we're building up Swift Repair Kits and shipping things over the next few weeks.
Wow! We literally got hundreds of orders over the weekend, mostly for SkeinTwister parts and Swift Repair Kits, though Glowies and misc Yarn Notions were pretty popular as well. Thank you so much - your orders alleviate a lot of the stress of the near future, as we'll continue to have business expenses and work to do for a couple of months after we shut down web orders, plus some extra wrap-up expenses. Your support is very much appreciated. Thank you as well to everyone who has dropped me an email or commented on the socials - I've read every comment and replied to every email. It's been an emotional few days, and Robyn and I both feel such profound gratitude to you all for giving us such a strong and supportive send-off. Hearing that our work has had such a positive impact is amazing, I consider that to be the pinnacle of achievement for an engineer and small business, and it makes me so happy.
Swifts are Sold Out - Resellers Might Have Some Left
I'm sorry a lot of you missed out on swifts - we only had the main parts to build 12 more (other than the 12 ready-to-ship ones we had leftover from holiday shows), and I'd have to re-order a batch of 100-200 parts to restock, which was just not an option at this time. We sold out 12 hours after our email went out on Saturday. However - we do have a few yarn shops who carry them - you might want to call them and see if they have any and if they'll ship. Here's our reseller page.
So When's My Stuff Gonna Ship?
We worked really hard over the last few weeks to make sure our website inventory is up to date (I only screwed up on those bulk bags of StitchFishes so far, oops), and that we built everything we could possibly build from the parts we had on-hand. The 3 things that still require assembly or cutting parts are:
- some Glowies
- SkeinTwister Foot Pedals
- Swift Repair Kits
We're working first on shipping orders where everything is ready to go, that are all soldering kits and/or yarn notions. Today was a USPS holiday and there are some heavy rains forecast for tomorrow, so even if you get a shipping notification, your package may not be dropped off until Wednesday (our local USPS loading dock can be a mess when it rains, and we'd rather not risk soggy packages).
We'll work on SkeinTwister parts orders next, and will be building up the rest of the foot pedals later this week, possibly into early next week. These orders should start shipping next week.
Swift Repair Kits take the most time and organization on our part because of the amount of different colors and materials we need to cut for them, plus the added complexity of black or white sets of spare parts to match the hubs, plus there's one configuration difference in the strut pins between early and later batches of swifts. We have records of all this for each serial number, but basically each repair kit is unique so it's a lot of work. We'll start working on these after shipping SkeinTwister parts orders, so it will be a couple of weeks. We'll keep you posted in more emails like this one.
Can We Combine Shipping on Multiple Orders?
We're trying to when we can, but it's not guaranteed. Some of our items have specific shipping requirements, like Swifts and Swift Repair Kits. These are both packaged in custom long skinny boxes to best protect the struts, and not much more can fit in them. So if you've placed 2 orders and we have to ship them in 2 different boxes, you won't get a shipping refund. If you placed a single order and we have to ship in 2 different boxes, congrats, you probably got discounted shipping and didn't even know it. :) If you placed multiple orders and we can ship them all in one box, you may or may not get a refund depending on how big the box is and how much it costs to ship. If you do get a refund, you'll get an automatic email from our website. Please do not email and ask us about this, as that just creates more work for us to respond and delays shipping. Thank you for understanding!
Join Our Discord!
Folks have been joining the Alpenglow Discord server yay! I'm unwinding at night by looking at it, and current chats are 3D printing, how to get started with 3D modeling software so you can make your own prints, and general intros and hellos. Come on over! It's a mix of electronics, yarn, and how to make stuff or skill up. Which makes perfect sense if you know me or have been getting these emails for a while. :)
Thank you again for sending us off on such a high note!
-Carrie & Robyn