Category: StitchyBox

Another StitchyBox and a Give-Away!

22/2/2021

After my first review of one of the StitchyBoxes I had ordered, I thought it would take longer for the second one to arrive. However, it came within a week after my first review :). This one took a little over six months to arrive and with shipping and custom's fees, it also cost €114 or $138. This particular box is called "Pacific Northwest Countdown Box" and contained 30 pretty little wrapped goodies. So let's see what they look like unwrapped! And read to the end of this blog for the Give-Away :).

Unboxing of a StitchyBox

The Pacific Northwest box contains:
- three 8 yards skeins of stranded variegated Flower Silk by StitchyBox (Mountain air, Driftwood and Blue spruce)
- skein of 8 yards of stranded Beaver grey French spun silk "Stitchy Silk" by Stitchy Box (NOTE: the other three silk skeins are spun silk too!).
- 8 yards skein of Colour & Cotton Pine Needles variegated stranded cotton
- skein of The Gentle Art variegated stranded cotton Stormy Morning (StitchyBox exclusive)
- 50 yards skein of overdyed #12 perle by Threadworx (#1015)
- 17,5 x 23 cm piece of cotton quilt fabric for finishing
- 17,5 x 22 cm piece of thick hand-dyed wool felt
- 23,5 x 33 cm piece of hand-dyed 32ct linen
- 23,5 x 42,5 piece of 32ct gingham linen
- 3 gr Miyuki mini fringe beads, 3x 2gr Toho beads 11/0, 1gr Delica beads 11/0, 1gr Miyuki beads 15/0, 15 2mm agate beads, 6 natural 5mm sunstone rounds and 5 Swarovski rose montees.
- four charms, tiny needle minder, wooden pendant, wood slice for finishing, twill tape for finishing and a sticker.
- Pretty little Seattle cross-stitch chart by Satsuma Street and Festive little fobs woodland edition by Heartstring Samplery.

The contents of the second StitchyBox confirms my opinion of these boxes. They are fun, but probably not a good deal if you live outside the USA and have to deal with high shipping costs and custom's fees. I love the skeins of thread and will lovingly add them to my stash. The beads are also a welcome addition to my collection. Less sure about the slice of wood and the sticker. But that is probably me :).

And whilst I love to cross-stitch, the above three designs from my two StitchyBoxes are not things I would ever stitch. This brings us to the Give-Away! If you would like to receive all three designs (Oh Whale by Handson Design, Tribal Sand Dollar by White Willow Stitching and Pretty little Seattle by Satsuma Street) you need to do very little:

1) leave a comment on THIS blog in which you tell us which of the three designs is your favourite (this is to satisfy my curiosity).
2) make sure you are subscribed to my newsletter (this is obvious, I am a business after all)

Please do alert your friends to this opportunity. The GiveAway will end Sunday 28-02-2021 midnight CET. I will announce the winner in the next blog. The designs will be shipped through Deutsche Post with a tracking code. Good luck!

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Un-boxing a StitchyBox

18/1/2021

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Ever since the successful subscription box "Broderibox" by Nordic Needle ceased to exist when the company was dissolved, I have been looking for a replacement. I loved these monthly boxes with a wide variety of embroidery threads and related goodies. For a whole year, I stitched up a small piece each month with the threads at hand (if you click the link above, you see my pieces). It was such a lovely opportunity to try out new threads and to hone my embroidery skills. Alas, the Broderibox is a thing of the past. Then I tried the "Stitchers Box" by Barbaral Creations (read my blog here). Lovely, but not quite the same thing. And these boxes are no longer produced either. And then there was StitchyBox! Back in June 2020, I ordered two. One finally arrived on 30-11-2020 and the other has still not shipped. More on that later. But first: let's un-box a StitchyBox!

Unboxing of a StitchyBox

So, what is a StitchyBox? I decided to order a countdown box with 30 individually wrapped embroidery goodies that can be opened one at a time each day. My box was called '2020 Oceans Small Batch Box". When you order your box, you have several fabric options. Mine was the lower count (no aida) as the higher count had already sold out. As I did not want to wait too long for my box, I ordered from the "ready-to-ship/ship-date-approaching". In my mind, this meant that these boxes were complete and ready to ship. As I ordered during the pandemic, I was not particularly worried when my box had not arrived after six weeks. Then I realised that I had never received a shipping confirmation. When I checked the website, there was a message that the shipping of the boxes was delayed due to the pandemic. That's when I realised that "ready-to-ship/ship-date-approaching" is not quite what it says. I think Stitchy Box designs a box, takes payment and then orders in the materials that go into a box. That's a valid business model. But does not work during a pandemic when ordering in materials has become a haphazard affair. When I ordered my boxes in June, there was no message on the website saying that there were any problems with getting the boxes ready and out. There was such a message when I checked after about six weeks. Never-ever was I approached by StitchyBox to clear me up on what was going on. Enfin, what did all these lovely paper bags contain?

Unboxing of a StitchyBox

These are the contents of the "2020 Oceans Small Batch Box":
- 7 skeins of embroidery thread (two variegated Flower Silk by StitchyBox, over-dyed floss by ThreadWorx, Colour & Cotton stranded cotton, Classic Color Works stranded cotton, Stitchy Silk by StitchyBox and DMC etoile)
- 7 small bags of beads (two delica 11/0 seed beads (1 g), Toho 11/0 seed beads (2 g), 10 natural 2mm adventurine beads, 10 2mm agate beads, 10 freshwater pearls and 10 2mm Swarowski glass beads Vintage Gold).
- 8 charms (Swarowski crystal, real shell, stone fish, glass penguin, ceramic seahorse, plastic seastar, metal seastar and metal crab).
- half a yard of blue twill tape, a length of variegated gimp, 6 shell buttons and a sticker.
- two cross-stitch charts.
- two pieces of linen ( 32 ct 35 x 24 cm Zweigart light-blue and 28 ct 32,5 x 23,5 hand-dyed linen).

Unboxing of a StitchyBox

Whilst I love the skeins of embroidery thread that are in the StitchyBox, I am not sure about some of the other contents. For my taste, the box is a bit heavy on charms. So what about the costs? This particular StitchyBox costs $80 with $25 shipping to Germany. Where it will cost you an additional €16,65 to have it released from customs. This amounts to €114 or $138. As shipping costs are much lower within the US and there are no additional custom's charges, you get a better deal. However, with the high shipping costs to Europe and the additional charges, the price for a StitchyBox is a bit steep.

As the message on the StitchyBox website currently states that all outstanding boxes will be shipped out during January and early February, I will probably receive the other box in March or April. As I couldn't really find anywhere what was in these boxes when I ordered mine, I conducted this experiment so you would have an idea of what it is you are potentially missing out on. Will I order from this company again? Probably not as I don't like the fact that they did not contact me when the shipping of my boxes was severely delayed. Taking payment is easy. Good customer service is hard work!

Do you have any experiences with StitchyBox? Do you feel that they are good value for money? Please leave your comments below! As I was unable to find recent reviews online let's make this blog post a reference for those seeking more information.

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Another StitchyBox and a Give-Away!

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