So here is a letter from Knit Picks, who has self-identified as “The Company Who Must Not Be Named”.
I DEFINITELY made one mistake–I thought this was written on Kelly P’s account, bt it was not–the Rav account used belongs to the writer–“KPKate”. Otherwise, well, draw your own conclusions. Cheers–Gemma
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Hi Gemma,
NancyArtCrafts brought the CogKNITive podcast #60 to my attention. I would like to apologize that I did not respond to your donation request. I sincerely hope that your fiber retreat went well. Previously, I only sent emails to customers and organizations to confirm that they should expect a package from Knit Picks, because we receive several hundred donation requests every month. After hearing your podcast, I understand that it can be frustrating not to hear a response back when you are organizing an event, so I will write up a letter to send to each donation request. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
Knit Picks actually has a very small staff of people who do many different jobs. I’m new to the marketing department, and this is my first job out of college. Honestly, my lack of a response wasn’t because we are a big corporation that doesn’t care about knitters, but because I hadn’t figured out a polite way to tell people that we couldn’t fulfill their request. We donate a lot of free merchandise, but in order to be fair, I try to make sure that some of it goes to charities, some goes to knitter’s guilds or retreats, some goes to big events like Rhinebeck, some goes to small community groups, and then I try to cover a range of areas across the US and Canada.
You had some incorrect information in your podcast that I’d like to correct. Our Harmony wood needles were inspired by Kelley’s measuring spoon that had a rainbow laminate over the wood. Here is a link to the product: http://www.cooksite.com/IBS/SimpleCat/product/ASP/product... They sell these measuring spoons in Portland, Oregon grocery stores.
Our Chinook lace shawl kits created because our designers wanted to make a sampler of each type of our lace yarns knit into one project. To make the yarns look cohesive, we arranged the yarns in a gradient.
The staff at Knit Picks shops at local yarn stores and with indie dyers as well as using our own yarn. We want to give knitters quality yarn at affordable prices, but we want to support a vibrant community of knitters where Knit Picks, LYS, and Etsy yarnies can exist together.
I came to Knit Picks after managing a local yarn store through college. It is one of my goals to give Knit Picks customers the same sort of help, support, and community that I was able to provide in my store. I do this by answering questions on Ravelry and our Knitting Community, by writing tutorials and making videos for knitting techniques, blogging, and working on the Knit Picks podcast.
If you would like to contact me directly about donations for your fiber event next year, my email address is perryk@craftsamericana.com.
All the best,
Kate Perry
Marketing Assistant
Knit Picks
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