Fraser and Kirkbright remnants

[ForresterModern]

Actually, Jeff, what I said in my pm was that it LOOKED like Gordon had shipped 8m of single-width, that I would be contacting him and would get back to you as soon as he and I had talked. We have now done so and he is dropping by this afternoon with the full 8m of double-width. If you are still interested, let me know.

Yahoo!! Thanks for the happy update Thistledown. I most certainly will accept the other half of your eight meters, and just go ahead and sent it on to Barb. We have already been in touch about it as you can see from her congratulatoory post above.

Happy happy Joy Joy!! I didn't miss the boat after all, thanks to the generosity of Thistledown and the solid business practices of Gordon at B&S.

Now I get to join the Barb T jonesing club, followed sometime thereafter by the Barb T kilt owner's club. But now the Allen Kingussie by Barb T will have to wait a couple more months to join her que.

[cessna152towser]

Yahoo!! Thanks for the happy update.................

Happy happy Joy Joy!! I didn't miss the boat after all, thanks to the generosity of Thistledown and the solid business practices of Gordon at B&S.

Congratulations, its nice to hear of a fellow x-marker securing some of the remnants and planning to use them for a quality kilt.

I can't agree its a solid business practice to sell fabric, accept payment, then discover you have none left for people who have already paid you for it.
My refund is on its way through the system, I just hope my kilt fund doesn't take too big a hit in bank charges for changing pounds sterling into Canadian dollars and then back again.

[ThistleDown]

I feel very fortunate to have been one of those who did manage to get this fabric, but just to set the record straight, I was the first one to place an order and it was for 8m of double-width. As you noted earlier, there was a glitsch in the order processing, but when this had been sorted, Gordon honoured the orders in the order they came in. FM was the first on the board to say he wanted a full kilt-length but couldn't deal with the double-width to make it, so I offered half of mine to him. I know that doesn't address your conversion cost issue, but I hope it explains a bit better what happened. F&K is a good cottage-industry weaver with a fine reputation for fair pricing and fair trading.

[Alan H]

The other thing that happened here is that we hammered F&K with orders so fast for these two fabrics that I bet Gordon had problems keeping track of exactly what was left. I mean, some of their remnants have stayed up on their page for months and months...this was gone in like, two-three days.

[Paul Henry]

Most companies that I have dealtwith , for fabric ,eg Marton mills ,don't actually take the money until the goods have been despatched,especially as it was old stock fabric,it didn't have to be woven,,, then Alex wouldn't have been made out of pocket, afraid it's a little like sharp trading, better luck next time,but I know I'd be very circumspect before I bought fabric from them... just my thoughts... and no reflection on their weaving ability....

[Alan H]

Most companies that I have dealtwith , for fabric ,eg Marton mills ,don't actually take the money until the goods have been despatched,especially as it was old stock fabric,it didn't have to be woven,,, then Alex wouldn't have been made out of pocket, afraid it's a little like sharp trading, better luck next time,but I know I'd be very circumspect before I bought fabric from them... just my thoughts... and no reflection on their weaving ability....

While I am sorry that Alex didn't get any fabric, and I hope it doesn't cost him much out-of-pocket, I think I can say with the greatest confidence that Fraser and Kirkbright is about as upstanding a business as it is possible to be. Don't forget that Fraser and Kirkbright is the weaver of the X-marks tartan.

Do you remember, last year the issue with the third run of the X-Marks tartan? Through no fault of Gordons, part of the selvedge of the cloth got ruined. Steve Ashton noticed this when he took delivery of the bolt, and called Gordon. Fraser and Kirkbright then RE-Wove the order at THEIR expense and supplied perfect cloth. The "spoilt" cloth then went up on the "remnants" page and sold at a very steep discount. I purchased some of this cloth (the last two meters) for a box-pleat kilt for my friend TimC. While indeed the selvedge was wrecked and the cloth needed to be hemmed, the quality of the cloth was excellent, and Gordon probably lost a bundle of money on the deal, since he wound up having to weave two lots instead of one and had to sell one of them at a deep discount. A significant number of X-Markers got perfect cloth at a deep discount from this deal, since by no means was the entire bolt affected by the problems. Fraser and Kirkbright did this to make good on their agreement to supply first-quality cloth their customers.

Do you think that a third-world weaver, whose cloth was wrecked through no fault of their own, would make good to THEIR customers? I doubt it.

Anybody can make a mistake, which is what I assume happened with Alex's order for the Maple Leaf tartan. It sounds like Gordon personally contacted Alex and apologized. I'm sad for Alex, since I'm sure he'd love a Maple Leaf tartan kilt, but to suggest that maybe Fraser and Kirkbright isn't on the up-and-up is kind of unfair at this point. I hope that Alex isn't out too much on the exchanage rate conversions....perhaps Gordon will be able to supply Alex with cloth in the future at a discount similar to this one....that would be a really nice gesture.

Just my two cents.

[Paul Henry]

Alan , if that comment as directed at me, it's hardly deserved, my observation still is, that it is not reflection on their weaving ability, but it's at the very least a little careless to take money for goods that you don't have...

[cessna152towser]

Thistledown, thanks for explaining that.
From my end it had seemed curious that shortly after you posted on here that you had contacted Gordon and that he had another 8 metres of double width fabric available to bring to you later in the day, Gordon then contacted me to say he had now run out of it and would refund my money, having already accepted my payment 32 hours earlier.
Until you posted this explanation I was not aware that you had already paid for 8 metres double width.
No hard feelings to you or Forrester Modern or Gordon at F & K, these things happen, as PaulHenry says it was a bit careless of Gordon to accept my payment and then find he had not enough fabric, but he did apologise and promptly put the refund in motion. I'm already making alternative kilt plans for the money once it is returned to my account.

[Alan H]

Thistledown, thanks for explaining that.
From my end it had seemed curious that shortly after you posted on here that you had contacted Gordon and that he had another 8 metres of double width fabric available to bring to you later in the day, Gordon then contacted me to say he had now run out of it and would refund my money, having already accepted my payment 32 hours earlier.
Until you posted this explanation I was not aware that you had already paid for 8 metres double width.
No hard feelings to you or Forrester Modern or Gordon at F & K, these things happen, as PaulHenry says it was a bit careless of Gordon to accept my payment and then find he had not enough fabric, but he did apologise and promptly put the refund in motion. I'm already making alternative kilt plans for the money once it is returned to my account.

Kudos for you for being a good sport about what seems to have been a mixup and mistake. I'm glad that you're getting a prompt refund, and hope that anything with the currency exchange doesn't cost you much, if anything at all.

[ThistleDown]

Thistledown, thanks for explaining that.
From my end it had seemed curious that shortly after you posted on here that you had contacted Gordon and that he had another 8 metres of double width fabric available to bring to you later in the day, Gordon then contacted me to say he had now run out of it and would refund my money, having already accepted my payment 32 hours earlier.
Until you posted this explanation I was not aware that you had already paid for 8 metres double width.
No hard feelings to you or Forrester Modern or Gordon at F & K, these things happen, as PaulHenry says it was a bit careless of Gordon to accept my payment and then find he had not enough fabric, but he did apologise and promptly put the refund in motion. I'm already making alternative kilt plans for the money once it is returned to my account.

Good on you, Alex. Definitely no hard feelings in me. By the way, are you around in July? I'll be passing through on my way home to Inverness and perhaps....