My knitting efforts have been a little slow this week. Like indigirl I am finding that stress in my life is making it difficult for me to work well on my knitting projects... I just keep making mistakes and getting frustrated. So I've decided not to tackle too much that I would just have to frog later.

But I do want to tell you about my experiences with KnitPicks -- good experiences.

A while back I posted about my mom trying to get me a ball winder and swift for Christmas. I got the swift shortly after I won the eBay auction and was waiting patiently to get the ball winder. And waiting, and waiting.... In the mean time, I did get something else I had ordered from them -- my SpaceBoard (these take longer because I think they are made at a table pad company and have to be shipped separately). So I didn't think about the ball winder too much. Until about 2 weeks after the order was placed. And then I called them to ask them if they could track the package.

I got a friendly operator who looked at what was happening and immediately set up a new shipment for me (it looks like their shipping company had a hard time delivering my package to the Chicago post office... I know how hard that can be, Chicago is such a *small* town, LOL), without questions. So this week I was looking forward to my ball winder, but got another surprise first -- another SpaceBoard. Now, I suspect I could have found a good home for this board, but I didn't feel good doing that. Once again, they took care of the mistake immediately and someone will be picking up that board next week, at no cost to me.

Now, you might be thinking "how could those be good experiences? KnitPicks just screwed up." And yes, they did. What made it a good experience was

1) Two very friendly operators who did their best to help me and never accused me of anything.
2) A company that took steps to resolve the problems immediately.

I don't mind mistakes -- it's a hazard of doing business. What I do mind is when a company doesn't give me satisfactory explanations, or doesn't try to make good, or treats me as if the problem was my fault and I should have to deal with it. They didn't do any of these things. They acted professionally and treated me with respect.

And I got my ball winder last night.... introduced it to the swift... they're a happy couple now and have already had the pleasure of bonding over a hank of Rowan Summer Tweed and a hank of Cascade 220. I just love knitting toys!