Like many people in the fiber community I started seeing the FibreShare posts on Instagram a little over a year ago. I instantly fell in love with the gorgeous pictures and idea of making friends and getting a box of yarn.
So how FibreShare works is you sign up and pay a fee to be in the program (I paid $7 but I think the latest round went up to $8). Through matching you get two partners. The partner you send to and the partner who sends to you. The fee partially goes into running everything but also goes to sending replacement packages if they get lost in the mail or a partner is unable to send one for some reason.
I signed up for the first round of this year and got my partner information on January 26th. With in a few days I was talking with the partner who would be sending me a box on Instagram and emailing with the partner I was sending to.
So with my partner information I got to work on the box I was sending. I had a lot of fun putting a box together and went to three yarn stores in the process. I felt the box I sent was relatively well rounded and would be exciting to get.
The deadline to send boxes for this round was March 4th. I sent my partners box on March 3rd and it was on the other side of the country in about three days. Then I started waiting for my box. I knew there was a lot of bad weather on the East Coast (where mine was coming from) so I waited patiently.
After two weeks I contacted my partner and she told me it must have gotten lost in the mail. At this point I was thinking okay it happens I will just submit a missing package report. Then my partner messaged me saying she was going to send a second box. So I waited to submit the report. So I waited and waited and waited some more. I reported a missing package on April 13th which was right around the deadline to report a missing package.
The missing package investigation was not a short process, but I understand why they want to get to the bottom of things. I finally got a replacement package on May 18th, WELL over a month after the final shipping date
I was not disappointed with the replacement package and will use the yarn I was sent.
Overall I am still really disappointed that I didn't get more interactive partners and that my actual partner didn't send a box. It was also disheartening that the partner sending to me was selling parts of her stash online, many things I would not have minded getting in a box. I do not think she ever attempted to send me a box and if she was unable to for some reason or another it would have at least been nice to have been told one wasn't coming. It was honestly very upsetting to be waiting excitedly for a box and then not only not get one but realizing you were lied to about it.
In the end it took way more time and energy than I was expecting but FibreShare did hold up their end of the bargain and I did get a replacement package.
Will I do this again? Most likely not. Next time I want a mystery box I will order a yarn mystery box from a dyer or have someone close to me choose something.
Hope you have better luck than me.
~Katy
