Wrapping up 2021 and an outlook on 2022

Soon I will be backing my famous Christmas stollen and I will be taking a well-deserved break from my business from the 24th of December until the 9th of January. I will only briefly return on the 3rd of January for the sign-up of the third run of my medieval embroidery course. And as there are a few things a bit different this year, please read on if you are thinking of signing up. As it doesn't look like covid is leaving us anytime soon, my studio will stay closed during 2022. Unfortunately, there is a lot of vaccination scepsis in my beautiful alpine village with more than a third of all adults not being vaccinated. Having students, who come from all over Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland,  attend courses in my studio (other than my husband and I, none of the other parties in our apartment block are vaccinated) is a risk I am not willing to take. As an alternative, I hope to be able to teach at the Alpine Experience in June. Especially for my German-speaking students, I am planning a two-day weekend course at the open air museum Glentleiten. As soon as I have more details, I will publish them here. And now on to some important information on the Medieval Goldwork Course and my webshop!

The second run of my Medieval Goldwork Course has been a great success. As you know, the course is very much an interactive affair as the students are part of my ongoing research project. None of the medieval embroiderers left us an instruction book. This means that there is less known about the "how" as you might think. During the second run, we felt that some things were not quite right yet. Modifications have been made for the third run and I am excited to see if we are right this time. This also means that it is important that, if you sign up for the course, you do participate. I therefore kindly ask you not to sign up if you know that your circumstances are too busy for this in-depth academic course. Equally, if you are only looking to learn goldwork embroidery techniques, but you are not interested in using the materials provided as they might be a little more cumbersome than the stuff you have in your stash, I kindly ask you to not sign up. There are plenty of other embroidery teachers out there that teach goldwork embroidery. If you are a curious person with a taste for medieval history and goldwork embroidery: I'd love for you to sign up! All details on the upcoming course can be found here.

As I am finally growing up as a business, I'll need to implement many changes to my webshop. The biggest change will be adding 19% VAT to all prices. To avoid this price increase, you might want to shop before midnight on the 31st of December! As shipping prices outside the EU are still ridiculously high, I will no longer sell fragile objects such as goldthreads. Currently, you have the option to have your items shipped in a padded envelope or as a parcel. When you click between the options it clearly states that you should not use the much cheaper padded envelope for fragile objects. Guess what? I am shipping purl and other delicate goldthreads in padded envelopes all the time. And I have to deal with the complaints too :(.

In order to make all the changes, my webshop will be closed from midnight 31st of December until as long as it takes :). When everything goes to plan, the webshop will be up and running again on the 2nd of January.

Brexit, my nemesis. I have written about this before: due to Brexit and me finally becoming a real business, I am no longer able to sell to the UK after midnight on the 31st of December. This means that things like downloadable ebooks and patterns can no longer be automated. The current automated setup would mean that customers from the UK can still purchase and download, but I am legally required to return their money... The new setup will be that I will email your digital product during business hours.

Likely, I will not be able to stuff all loopholes regarding my webshop. This means that I will have to cancel any purchase with a payment or shipping link to the UK. I feel gutted about this, but this is the reality for small businesses like mine who cannot afford the financial and legal steps that are required by the UK government.

That's all for now. Thank you for your support during 2021 and please keep up the good work in 2022! Wishing you a lovely holiday season from snowy Bad Bayersoien.