Inspiration
This Tariff Thing
Dear all,
In the past few days I’ve received three email newsletters from folks in Europe who run knitting-related enterprises that I admire utterly. Each explains how they are responding to the tariffs that are being imposed on orders going to customers in the United States.
In short, it’s a mess. People are doing their best to continue to serve their U.S. customers, but it’s fraught with difficulty and expense at every turn.
Their concern, of course, is that we in the United States will stop ordering from them because the expense of tariffs is too high.
I heartily encourage everybody to keep the love and the U.S. dollars flowing to these businesses; they need it. The U.S. is by far the largest set of customers in the world for yarns, patterns, designs, notions, and tools. Knitters in the U.S. are enriched immeasurably by the work of these businesses. Sadly this fact may only truly hit home if they disappear.
The current tariff situation is fluid; it changes in a way that is unpredictable. It’s not like the lean teams of these small businesses have even a second of spare time to fool with any of it. And yet, and yet—they must spend time responding to the effect of these new taxes (for that’s what a tariff is, plain and simple).
We here at MDK are struggling with the tariff situation as well. We’re working right now on developing a new palette of our British-made Jane yarn. We’re pushing ahead because we’re eager to expand the color fun that can be had with our all-British yarn (British wool, British dye house, British mill). We have no idea what the tariff situation will be when it comes time for our yarn to ship from the U.K. But it’s unsettling, to say the least.
We knitters are so lucky to have an international marketplace for yarns—getting a parcel from a distant place is big fun. Would love it if you’d leave a comment with your favorite non-U.S. knitting/yarn/design company.
And, of course, your favorite local U.S. hand dyer is fighting this situation as well—many yarn bases are made outside the U.S. So shopping with them is important as well.
Our support for domestic yarn production remains undiminished. We admire, purchase, sell, and knit with American yarns as often as we can, and MDK’s own beloved Atlas and Atlas x Madelinetosh yarns are grown, spun, and dyed in the U.S. But let’s state it plainly: the yarnmaking supply chain in the U.S. is not robust; it would take many years, and millions upon millions of dollars of investment, for U.S.-based yarnmakers to be able to supply the variety and quality of yarns that have been manufactured abroad for as long as we have been knitting.
I dread the possibility of one of these beloved non-U.S.-based companies folding because the tariffs were the last straw. Think about the stab to the heart you feel when a knitting company you love writes that awful announcement. Let’s do what we can to support them.
Your abiding support is a powerful, important thing!
Love,
Ann
Boston Tea Party image from Wikipedia. (And yes, we realize the Boston Tea Party is a totally different sort of tariff situation. We just like this drawing, mostly.)
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So much in our poor old world has gotten so much worse so very quickly.
I love love love Shetland wool and buy from Jamieson & Smth a lot. Also love the yarns Carol Feller offers at Stolen Stitches in Ireland,
I’m lucky enough to be a US expat in Canada… which leads me to ask if there may not be a way in which you could, perhaps, possibly, per chance, work with some… any… of your Canadian connections (Kate Atherley in Toronto, Claudia in Hamilton, heck, even little old me here in Cambridge in between those other 2) and create a Canadian MDK intermediary through which MDK members can order their EU faves AND MDK UK-made Janes can pre-arrive.
I’m not sure if it lessens or mitigates the problem, solves the problem, or merely replaces one with another (or multiple others) but it might be something for a really good accountant to look into.
And ditto UK – it would be madness indeed if, to buy MDK’s British Jane yarn, knitters in Britain have to pay the effect of tariffs twice (out and back). Presumably everyone is looking for workable workarounds pending the actual US intention that the sheep, the spinners and the dyers move from UK to US, somehow have no set-up costs, and then UK buyers just buy from the US with one lot of tariffs (or one lot of tariffs, applied on higher prices, because of course, set up costs are *not* zero, and as the prices are higher, the tariffs are higher).
No-one’s a winner?
The news said today, and I had already heard, that some countries, including UK, will not be shipping to the US. So it may be out of our beloved yarn suppliers’ control.
Sounds like a very good idea.
Faves – Kate Davies, John Arbor, Carole Feller
I just bought some beautiful yarn by Frankie Grey Fibres from Yarn Byrds at the Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet festival last weekend. http://www.FRANKIEGREYFIBRES.com
It is a sad day when we can no longer chose where our yarns come from. I lived in NZ for a looong time, and felt that I was blessed with a beautiful selection right under my nose. I did occasionally order yarns from Australia, Canada and the US.
Now, I am based in France, and still finding my feet in the fibre/yarn world. Is this a good place to ask: where/who are the indie dyers in France? I wish to support local small businesses. Thank you!
It’s a sad, dark time in the world, and to see that spilling over into our yarn crafts is just heartbreaking.
I made a couple of orders, hopefully just under the deadline, of Spindrift and Carol Feller’s Nua Sport (which is my very favorite yarn to wear next to my skin). I hope that somehow they won’t be my last.
This dawned on me last night as I am nearly done with a pair of socks – The Fibre Co – Amble.
Knitting for Olive – fortunately my LYS has stocked up.
Perhaps I need to go across the pond on a trip with an empty suitcase to go yarn shopping for my friends and I?
Thank you for this timely statement. I have now heard from Kate Davies, Alice Starmore, Susan Crawford, John Arbon, Loop, and Marie Wallin in the UK, and Sonder Yarns in Canada about how they can no longer ship to the US until they are able to figure out both how to collect the tariff and then how to pay it to the US. I have resolved that, when they are able to continue shipping, I will continue to buy yarn from these lovely folks in spite of the tariff—but I know this may not be possible for everyone. It angers me that these important businesses may be put in jeopardy by the greed of the US government. I can only hope that this policy will vanish in that same way that it appeared—quickly and with little forethought.
I support a couples of dyers in Canada. But there is one that I can no longer support as she stopped shipping to the US and she was the source of my beloved merino/silk/yak. Melissa from Alley Cat Yarns said in her farewell email that it had become too much headache inducing work to figure out that days mess of tariffs/taxes so she stopped putting herself thru it. More’s the pity for me!
Another Canadian dyer that I love is Arcane Fibre Works.
I’m currently awaiting an order placed on Aug 6th. (It’s last known location was Bell Gardens, California!) Pls take a look at Arcane’s website as Tyler Burgess’s “mood board” for each colorway is so incredibly beautiful! And with every colorway is a picture of what that yarn looks like knit up as a stockinette swatch! I wish every dyer showed that!!
That’s my 2 cents worth of this cluster-fuck that is tRump’s presidency
As an English knitter, regular reader, fan and purchaser of MDK items I just want to second the message here. I absolutely love the way the internet has opened up the knitting community across the world. I love being able to knit patterns from designers all over the world, order beautiful yarns and support enterprising small creative businesses. I enjoy reading blogs and learning from other knitters wherever you are and I’ll never forget the first time I shared the joy with a fellow knitter on the other side of the world, in Canada, after we had both completed Kate Davies’ Bluebell sweater.
Ann, thank you for that update/ explanation. Through the years, I have developed a real sense of a global knitting community. thanks , in large part, to MDK. Together we’ve grown to appreciate our shepherds, dyers, suppliers with a new awareness and respect. I am committed to supporting the people that provide so much to me. I look to this space for any ways to be more supportive.
I love Kate Davies Designs https://katedaviesdesigns.com –Like MDK I love the writing as much as the yarn –just received an email with a long explanation of how they are dealing with the tariffs -very complicated -their yarns made in the UK have one tariff percentage, their yarn made in Ireland has a different one, there’s a new Royal Mail Service system they’ll be shipping under –And Fleece & Harmony on Prince Edward Island -wonderful vlog on YouTube —They both (and others I read) are apologizing to US for the hassle of the tariffs –UGH I want to apologize to THEM.