Finish-a-long 2019 - a nice surprise

Back in the summer, I had a surprise email from the organisers of the 2019 Finish-A-Long to say that I won one of the prizes for Q2. Being in the UK, there is always the possibility that with vouchers for American suppliers, you might end up spending more in shipping and custom charges than the voucher itself. Luckily this was a very generous prize and so right from the start I factored in the likely custom charge when deciding what to get.

My voucher was from Sew Sweetness and I spent a while looking at the website to see what I needed and what would be the best value items taking into consideration shipping/customs. Sara from Sew Sweetness was very helpful with questions I had about the different shipping options and once I had finally decided what to get and placed my order, the items arrived in the UK very quickly.

I chose a mix of items that I needed (a hot ruler for pressing hems etc which will be an improvement on the cardboard templates I usually use), items that were better value than in the UK (long double-headed zips for bag making), and some items that I wanted to try and where ideally priced to use the full value of the voucher (Tulip applique needles, a magnetic needle/pin/scissor keepers, and some Clover wonder clips). With some careful planning, less than a fifth of the voucher value went on shipping and the cost of all these items to me was a customs charge of ~£18.

I’d like to thank the sponsors and organisers of the 2019 Finish-A-Long and I better get sewing to have some finishes to show for Q4.

(For 2019, I am trialling a version of this website on WordPress to see if it is more mobile-friendly  for commenting and posting. The WordPress version of this post is available here.)