Acquisitions

I went on an internet shopping spree a couple of weeks ago (22.5. to be exact). It began by searching for cheap, small stitch markers. I already bought a package from a local yarn store that contained a bunch of two(?) different sized markers that are soft (those green and purple ones, don't know the manufacturer) but I found that I need more of the small ones. And the price is just awful (was around 6,5-7 € for the package that had 10 small + 10 larger ones), so I wanted to see if I could find the same things from the amazing internet with free shipping.

I found something on the Amazon (.com) but got extremely annoyed, like I usually do with Amazon. It's fine if you want to order 1 specific item, like a book, but if you'd just like to shop around and gather items, it's just near impossible. Every store has its own shipping policies and the site doesn't even filter those shops that don't ship to Finland, and all advertisements about free shipping only applies to the certain states of USA. Even if I'm logged in and have told the site where I live...

I stumbled across Aliexpress.com to which I've chuckled on multiple occasions, or mostly to its mother site alibaba.com. Because of the name, and because alibaba is a wholesale store so when you're looking for something you go oh, that's cheap, if I order 3000 of those items at once... Aliexpress.com is pretty much the Chinese equivalent of Amazon. Anyways, peculiarly I didn't manage to find the sort of stitch markers that I was looking for on Ali, but boy did I find all sorts of other things I had in mind. And after the Amazon frustration, I just loved all the filters on aliexpress. It's still a bit annoying to browse through some categories, but majorly better than Amazon.

So I purchased:

• Those safety-pin looking stitch markers (or small stitch holders) packs of multicolored ones, I'm planning on giving some of them to my mother :)
• Plastic cable needles (different shape/size) 3 sets = 10 pcs 
• Pin cushions x3 that have a strap to attach it to your wrist. (I've made a hedgehog before, but it's difficult to tie around your wrist tightly and it's quite big, I must admit I just got these because they were cute)
• Some wires, crimp beads, alphabetic/number beads and jump rings to make my own stitch markers, inspired by this post and some other tutorials there are. I'll be able to make quite many...
• Foam mats for blocking. Stupidly expensive around here. I was contemplating between colored and plain beige color, and decided that while colored would be more fun, I shouldn't spend extra money on that, plus the color might bleed to blocked garments (though KnitPro mats are colored as well) so better safe than sorry. Free shipping was quite an essential filter. 
• A yarn winder! My mother laughed out loud when I asked if she had a yarn winder. They're not at all common here, though I don't know if they are elsewhere either. Anyways, this one had postages but it was cheaper in total than the ones that had free shipping, so sometimes it's worth checking that too. Also, it seems that it's exactly what people have ordered from Amazon, and if you order it directly from China, you get it for less money. It's going to be made in China anyways.

The foam mats and the winder were obviously the most expensive items on my shopping list. I probably wouldn't purchase "quality" items from there, but the things that I did order were on the category that no matter what the label is, they are going to be the same items anyways, but with just a random retailer and "label manufacturer" in between. 

It was nice to see that there is a time limit (different for different shops) to how long it can take before the shop has to process my order, and so all my in total 8 different orders were processed within 2 days. Buyer's protection was  ~40 days for all orders and I can ask for extension if the item doesn't arrive on that time (shipment could take up to 60 days), or open a dispute. Also a messaging option for the shop. and a button to confirm that I've received the order so the shop/site can too keep track of how long it took. Everything was shipped via China Post Air Mail and I got tracking codes for all but one order (that one was a 0.99$ order). The first one has arrived on our local post office 30.5. so it only took 8 days! And I noticed that by inserting the tracking codes to the local mail tracking, 2 others are currently in Finland also (cable needles and pin cushions). Tracking the China Post Air Mail code from the Chines point-of-view isn't that informative, but better than nothing.

There are two issues currently though. First one I noticed was that the destination country for the foam mats was Poland. I'm not sure if that one will make it to Finland, but at least Poland's in Europe, so there's still hope? I can also see it in Poland's post tracking but it's an "economy registered letter" and for those only dispatch & delivery dates are displayed, no tracking info. I sent a message to the shop asking about this. And in the worst case scenario I open a dispute. 

Second one was that two of my orders had the same tracking code. And actually the first that arrived was with that code, so I don't know yet which one actually arrived. I'll send a message to the other shop once I get around going to the mail office. They were separate shops at least on paper, but the orders were very similar so I don't know if there's a connection between the shops (in that they are identical) and one order hasn't been sent at all. I don't know if I've been lucky, but I haven't had problems with internet orders before, so I'm quite optimistic that everything will turn out ok.

In terms of knitting, I finished the cardigan I was knitting to my 2-year-old niece as a birthday present. Are those blueberries she's eating?