I would like to sincerely apologize for my actions over the last few months. There have been several reasons why things have come down to where they are. While none of them are more than excuses, I had to chose to do what was best for my family.
My first mistake was accepting too many orders. Absolutely every order is a custom order. I do not have a stock of items to ship from. While one hat takes me an hour to an hour and a half to make, it takes more time than that to finish up the ends of items (glueing, weaving in ends, sewing buttons, packaging etc) Some orders I recieved would take me at least one day if not two to get done. I seriously underestimated how long things take to complete.
I would like to thank my sister for helping me out so wonderfully to get me out of my funk and take control of the things I couldn't handle. I feel awful that so many of you had to suffer because of a few unkind people, but I suffer from anxiety and there were a handful of very hateful people that caused me to shut down completely. I made the decision to focus on my family and marriage during this time of crisis for us and while that decision was not professional or mature, it was the one I had to make.
When a few of you decided to request a refund (understandably and I would have probably done the same thing) it used up the money I had set aside to ship out all my items, moreso than that it over drew my checking account, which made it a huge struggle to make ends meet. My husband is in school full time, and my part time hours were cut down to basically nothing over the summer. This once again added to my anxiety and depression because I felt I had so throuroughly screwed everything up.
I have been in the process of putting to gether most of the orders. I will have them shipped out this weekend after I get paid.
While I understand it will take quite a while to earn back any trust I have lost, and would be utterly surprised and grateful if anyone continued to order from me, I have made a few decisions on how to proceed in the future.
First off, I will sell only what I have in stock. That way items will be ready to ship the next day, that is the biggest step. Secondly I will be setting up a website with a shopping cart. Taking email orders and even the etsy orders were confusing because of sizes and I would spend more time emailing and on the computer than necessary, taking time away from crocheting. The main thing is making a stock of items so that there is no wait at all.
Again I thank you for your patience and apologize for your inexcusable wait. I'd like to start moving forward from here. I understand that I've let you down, this was never my intention, and I absolutely do not and never planned to take your money without fulfilling my end of the deal. I believe it is well documented that I have screwed up and I do know how all of you feel. I do ask that you refrain from any hateful, mean emails, messages or comments. Also to keep your messages currently to my blog, facebook or email. All of which will get responses from either myself or my sister. Please leave my personal pages, blogs, etc out of this drama. I thank you sincerely for respecting that request.
My apologies,
Katy
Daisy Mae Hats
