Q: How recycled is your product, really? Some sellers use vague terms like “made from new and recycled materials.” I don’t want to buy a kit if it turns out to be mainly new fabric.
A: All of our felts are second-hand / post-consumer / post-industrial – whichever term you want to use.
We refuse to buy new felt when pre-loved felt is so much better. We love the range, the variety, the texture, the unique qualities of the natural felts we have in our stash.
We hope that you’ll appreciate the difference between our felts and commercial, generic, often synthetic felt.
Q: What about your trims and buttons? Are they new or recycled?
A: They’re mainly recycled.
We reclaim trims and buttons from unwanted garments, knowing that they’re usually still perfectly good. We aim always to rescue good stuff from landfill.
The trim comprises a tiny proportion of our products, so even though we do generally use new (often vintage) trims, we do feel confident in saying that we put out a 99% recycled product.
Q: Can we make up your kits to sell products commercially?
A: Our kits are intended for crafters – not for manufacturers.The crafting community is a polite one – so. . . please don’t use our kits to start your own commercial business. We have spent ages coming up with our designs. It’s just nice manners if you don’t rip us off. Thankyou!
Q: How long will it take for my kit to arrive?
A: We sister outlaws are also in the kid-wrangling game, so we have tried to streamline the way we do our mailing. Our current practice is to mail parcels twice a week – Tuesdays and Fridays - from inner suburban Melbourne.
What does this mean for your particular order? As soon as your payment clears in our account, your parcel will go out in the very next mail-out.
For example, if your money is available to us on a Monday, your parcel will be in the mail on Tuesday. If we receive your money on the Tuesday, your parcel will go out in the Friday‘s mail (unless we are having an extra-speedy and efficient day, and we surprise you with an early delivery!)
The closer you live to Melbourne, Victoria, the quicker your item will arrive.
Overall, we think it’s fair to say that your parcel will arrive between 4 and 10 working days from the day you send your payment.
Q: I have made a fairly large order, and would like to insure it. How do I go about this?
A: At the time of your order, please write in your order email any special instructions. We will reply to you with any extra charges that your request may entail.
Hold off on paying until we have given you the final figure, and you have agreed on it.
We’re not in the business of making profit from postage. Please be assured that any charges for insurance or express mail will not be inflated – we’ll simply cover our own costs.
Q: I need my order very quickly. What about Express Post?
A: Similar to the above question. At the time of your order, please put any special instructions into your order email. We will reply to you with any extra charges that your request may entail.
Hold off on paying until we have given you the final figure, and you have agreed on it.
Q: I’m picky about colour schemes. Can I choose the colours of the materials in the robot kit I want to buy?
A: We’re picky about colour schemes too. We do hope to offer customisation in future.
At the moment, we don’t have the capacity to individually make up a kit in special colours. (If we did, we’d be up all night, every night!)
Q: I have small scraps left over, and I don’t want to throw them out. But they’re not big enough to make a whole item from the pattern supplied in the kit. Any ideas?
A: We’re glad that you’re reluctant to chuck out the leftovers! That’s how we got into this business!
One of our mini-outlaws has made teeny versions of the brooches – we call them ‘wee-sew-cools‘. They’d make lovely hair decorations as well as brooches.
Check out our sewing tips page for ideas on making use of the leftovers. We’ll be adding to it as we get a chance to upload shots of products made from scraps.