I order a fair amount of fabric from XJu Designs on Etsy. She’s in Hungary and she is so fast with getting things in the mail – often the same day but it comes from Hungary and it sometimes takes a while to get to me. From the time it arrives in the U. S., it’s often 30 or more days. Sometimes it will sit for weeks in customs, then they hand it off to the USPS and it will sit for a week before it gets to moving on its way to me. I’m not complaining. I often feel like I’m clogging up the system ordering linen that I could get here in the U. S. Maybe it wouldn’t be exactly the same but close enough. I’m in XJu’s monthly club so I get an automatic shipment once a month. I’ve never had a package not arrive from XJu do I’m counting my blessings on that.
But . . yesterday morning when I checked my Informed Delivery, I had a package arriving from XJu. I didn’t think it was the monthly shipment so I went back through my orders. In the back of my mind, I’m usually remembering the packages I’ve ordered from her because I like to at least know if they get stuck somewhere along the way.
I ordered this on May 31. It arrived in the U. S. on June 7 and arrived in my mail box on June 13. That’s pretty close to unbelievable!
My reason for this order was to get some Aida to stitch up some of the Prairie Schooler Santas. Most, maybe all of them are 75 x 57 stitches so on 18 count Aida, they would finish at 4-1/8″ x 3-1/8″. If I leave 2″ on all sides, I would need a piece of fabric that’s 7″ x 8″. I could make them into ornaments or little pillows. I want to stitch all the Santas for Addie but I don’t want to finish them all exactly the same. Some of them, I may stitch on 16 count Aida to make them a little larger and finish them on styrofoam.
The small Santas might even be cute to make into little refrigerator magnents.
Anyway . . XJu had these little pieces of Aida that are 7″ x 38″ which will be perfect to cut up and make some of the Prairie Schooler Santas. I should be able to get 4 Santas from each strip and each strip was $12 . . not bad!
Of course, I couldn’t order from XJu and not get just a bit of linen.
The scissors didn’t come from XJu but aren’t they so cute? They are very inexpensive little scissors and they came from Kitten Stitcher. The line is from XJu and it’s 40 Count Marbled Hazelnut.
I’ve probably lost my mind but I’ve bought several pieces of 46 Count linen. The color of this one is Old Linen.
I may have ordered a few pieces of linen/aida recently but I don’t think I’ve ordered any charts. That counts for something, right?
Ana says
Hi. Reading you from Spain in Europe. I kind of understand you. When I do the reverse and , I buy a lot from 123stitch ,it can take in between 30 to 45 days to make through all custom and USP ‘s procedures. So my patience levels has arisen 🙂 My last Xjude shipment from Hungary is taking more than a week. Thankyou for supporting our europen biz as long as we buy also from the states. My experience is that sometimes in between custom taxes and shipping cost I ‘m asked to pay the double the purchase real price.
Apart from that it’s a real pleasure to read your blog. Keep stitching!
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Thank you for writing! I was telling Vince the other day how unfair it is for what most overseas purchasers have to pay in additional shipping, duty and VAT. XJu still has free shipping even to the U.S. I do order a good bit from the UK also. They have very nice crafty items but usually those orders are quite a bit less money than the XJu orders so if one of those didn’t arrive, I wouldn’t be nearly as upset as I would be if an order with several pieces of linen didn’t arrive but so far . . so good.