Crafty socks are here, my friends!
Inspired by my line of wooden sewing jewellery, let me introduce you to my first collection of craft socks for makers, knitters and sewists! There’s SO much I have to say about these, so I’ll start with the materials. I worked with a small British company to turn my designs into actual professionally knitted socks; they have a super high cotton content which means that they’re super soft and of the highest quality. The toe is seamlessly joined and the cuff features a wide, soft rib to keep you comfortable all day long.
There are three designs in the new collection, each dedicated to a favourite craft or tool in my studio. Every pair contains over 60,000 stitches’ worth of artwork which I designed whilst drinking approximately a million cups of coffee and listening to many hours of podcasts. Basically, my dream life!
UK pals, I have some extra info for you so please scroll down!
Let’s take a closer look…
Note for UK buyers: The seemingly interminable mess of Brexit means that French and UK shipping guidelines still seem to contradict each other. My main aim (in addition to following all the legal requirements) is to make sure my customers have as smooth an experience as possible, so please note that while I’m doing everything at my end to avoid any customs fees/delays at your end, there seems to be a certain amount of luck involved. It’s all much more complicated than I’d like, so here’s the current plan:
Etsy now automatically collects VAT from UK buyers and reports this to the UK government on my behalf. While the finer details of UK VAT for independent French businesses is being ironed out, I’m selling solely through Etsy for UK customers until further notice.
The automatic addition of VAT for UK customers means that prices on my Etsy shop appear higher than on cepheidstudio.com. Sadly none of that extra money comes my way, it goes straight to the government and is a fact of life in 2021. I do understand that it sucks to have to suddenly start paying VAT though, so as an introductory treat on these craft socks I’ve implemented a discount for UK buyers that means that, even after adding VAT, the price should work out about the same as the price EU folks are paying. This offer will run until midnight on Sunday 7th February 2021.
I now have to include a packing slip with every UK order which goes against every fibre of my waste-reducing soul, but here we are. This packing slip should tell UK customs that you’ve already paid VAT and that they should back off and let you have your socks, but as we know, it really seems to be a lottery at the moment as to how your parcel will be handled. I wish I had a more concrete answer for you, but my best advice at this stage is to hope for the best (that your parcel sails through customs with no extra fees), but expect the worst (that your parcel incurs some unforeseen customs fees). In any case, please know that I’ve done my absolute best to prepare you and your parcel for every eventuality, and that my fragile soul cannot handle people getting mad about something I have absolutely no control over. I really just want to provide you with excellent and fun socks!
All this sounds super serious and depressing which is the absolute opposite of what I’d like for sock launch day, so let’s get back on track! In fact, every pair of socks has a cheeky and cheery surprise for you inside the label - I had so much fun designing the packaging for these!
