I was in Hobbycraft this afternoon (went to get a polystyrene head), and i the section of the storeI was in, one of the assistants was putting House of Crafts kits on the shelves, including their lacemaking kit, which I've said before consists of a polystyrene roller which fits into a cut-out in the box it comes in and a few plastic bobbins and beads. (Take a breath.)
I commented to the lady putting them out, that they'd put more pople off than they'd encourage to make lace. Her reply was that they were only intended for children up to about the age of about 14. When I said that it didn't matter what age they were intended for if it put them off, she suggested I talked to their head office and persuaded them to stock 'proper' lacemaking equipment. I told her they'd already tried it, and had had a member of staff who was a lacemaker to choose the correct equipment to sell, but as they were charging about three times the price of other suppliers, they hadn't sold much and had finally reduced the stock to get rid of it. She said she remembered the lady in question and agreed that some of the stuff in the store was overpriced, but said that individual stores had no control over what was stocked and how it was priced, so there wasn't much she could do and got on with stacking the shelves. I was surprised that the head was cheaper than anywhere I'd found so far at 5 pounds 49 pence - used ones are selling on ebay in excess of 10 pounds. Jean in Poole - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
