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Black Stag Yarn & Fibre

FAQs

COVID-19

The well-being and safety of our customers is of paramount importance to us and we are doing everything that we can to help to reduce the spread of Covid-19. We are of course following advice from the government and the public health authority. Our priority is to look after us and our customers to the best of our ability. As we are in Scotland our mandates may be different to those in your area, we will continue to follow our government’s advice and apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Online Orders

We are still shipping to the UK (including the Highlands, Islands & Channel Islands), non-EU European countries, Canada and the USA, if there are any issues with postage to these countries we'll let you know. You can see Royal Mail's International Incidents Bulletin here.

All domestic packages will be sent 2nd class unless express 1st class shipping is paid for, overseas packages are sent with tracking. Please allow extra time for your order to arrive as postal services are under strain.

Unfortunately we do not yet post to the rest of the world.

 

Brexit updates

From the 1st July 2021 due to implementation of the new VAT rules we are sad to announce that we will no longer be able to sell or ship to our EU neighbours. As this is a small business we haven’t found a way to make shipping cost effective for you or us, passing the costs on to EU customers will make our products prohibitively expensive and it is not viable to raise our prices sitewide to offset this. This was a difficult and upsetting decision to make and we hope that, as things progress and feedback is acted upon, it is a situation we can change in the future.

Shipping to the United States and other international destinations is unaffected.

Do I pay any taxes?

Yes, you are responsible for paying any taxes to your own government once the parcel has reached your country.

This is known as Delivered Duty Unpaid (DDU) - The buyer is responsible for import clearance and any applicable local taxes or import duties. You will need to pay these before your order will be released. Please contact your local customs office for further information.

How long will it take for my order to arrive?

With the COVID-19 pandemic affecting staff numbers in logistics and the Brexit transition ending which has resulted in more paperwork, please allow a little longer for your order to reach you.

The vast majority of our orders are tracked and you will receive a tracking number.

I'm not in the UK or EU, how will my orders be affected?

For European destinations outside the EU, we will continue to ship on a Delivered Duty Unpaid basis and any outstanding import duties, clearance fees, brokerage fees or any other additional charges are the responsibility of our customer and need to be settled on delivery of your order based on the legislation imposed by the customs authorities of the destination country.

Please contact your local customs office for further information.

 

Payment & VAT.

Will I pay VAT?

If you are ordering within the UK, you will pay 20% VAT on your order. Your total will be updated as required when you enter your country in the shipping and billing section.

Gift cards and services like yarn caking do not have VAT applied but VAT is applied to the redeeming order if you are a UK customer.

Ways to pay -

For online orders, the payments processors are Shopify payments, PayPal and Clearpay, accepted payment methods are all listed at the bottom of the website and at checkout. Shopify accepts most major credit and debit cards, G pay and Shop pay, we also now offer Clearpay as an option to allow you to pay in instalments, please see our Clearpay FAQ for more detail (page opens Clearpay's own information page). Shopify payments is a secure payment processor integrated into the website checkout, PayPal and Clearpay are both secure payment processors that will open in a third party window. 

It is not possible to pay by cheque, postal order or bank transfer.

 

Yarn queries:

Dye lots and alternating skeins -

All of our yarns and fibres are hand dyed and do not have dye lots, each skein is unique, while we do everything possible to ensure colour matching we recommend alternating your skeins in a multi-skein project to avoid obvious colour differences or issues like unplanned colour blocking and pooling.

See our blog post for more details on how to do this or there are many excellent tutorials online to get the very best out of your investment.

Bleeding and Crocking -

What is bleeding and what is crocking? Bleeding is the colour from your yarn transferring onto other yarn you’re using (or another section of itself) this can be very frustrating if it bleeds onto a lighter colour. Crocking is the colour rubbing off on your hands as you use the yarn.

We always recommend you swatch for this and gauge reasons. It is much better to find out you have dye issues on a washed swatch than a finished project.

The dye blues (and greens) plague all dyers, sometimes there will be bleeding no matter how long you’ve set your yarn or fibre for and it is frustrating. I do everything I can to make sure this won’t happen, I set my yarns for much longer than is generally recommended and usually let them cool overnight before washing, I wash them in cold water. Only very rarely will there be a time the water isn’t clear, if not I will continue with a Synthropol wash until it is, however there may be some reasons that it doesn’t run clear for you -

The water you’re using is too hot, the wool wash or detergent (or if you use a fabric softener) is leeching the colour out.

If the yarn is losing colour but not fading this is not a fault, wash the yarn using a gentle detergent, Synthropol (a detergent formulated to prevent pigment washing back onto the yarn or fabric) or Dharma trading’s alternative following the bottle instructions and rinse until it comes clear.

If the yarn is fading and losing it’s vibrancy as you wash and doesn’t stop losing pigment this IS a fault, please do let me know so I can rectify it for you.

There are things you can do if you wish to rectify this yourself. I use acid dyes that require acid and heat to set, a vinegar rinse will not be enough, you can soak the yarn in diluted white vinegar for at least an hour & using a steamer basket steam the yarn for 30 minutes making sure the yarn does not touch the side of the pot and scorch, let it cool completely and rinse. If you are steaming a multi-coloured skein or multiple skeins it is a good idea to wrap them in cling film & then roll them up as the dye will transfer to any of the yarn that is touching and set there, it will not wash out. You can also add 3-4 tbs of white vinegar to a pan of a litre of water, bring it to a high simmer and simmer gently for 30 minutes, let cool completely and rinse. Please be very careful to avoid a lot of movement in the pan while doing this to avoid felting non-superwash yarns. Use more vinegar and water for more skeins of yarn. This advice is also applicable for any of our fibres that you have spun.

I’m afraid I cannot accept returns on yarns that have been damaged or felted due to you trying to dye set.