I have been living the nightmare of a quilt lost in shipping since July when I sent my “Turkish Bread Boys” to the UK for the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England. I was actually at the festival when I discovered that my quilt had never arrived. With the help of a dear friend, sister quilter, and super sleuth, Wendy Bentley, it was discover that the quilt was in the hands of British Customs. They had a question about intellectual property rights related to the artwork and had sent a request for additional information to the company that was to receive the quilt. This company claims to know nothing about the request, and, therefore, never responded. After holding the artwork for 2 months without reply, customs was to have sent it back to me. That would have been September 15.
Almost 7 weeks later, I have come home from work to find the Bread Boys sitting on my front porch. There was great joy as I brought them inside and tore open their packaging to find them in great shape.
LESSON LEARNED: Don’t go cheap on shipping. I used the US Postal Service because I needed my package to arrive quickly and I thought that getting signatures along the was would just slow things down too much. Unlike an international shipping company, the USPS gives up any responsibility or accountability when they hand the package off to another entity. When I inquired about my missing package, I actually got the false information that it had been delivered in the UK. Ironically, not requiring signatures was a much slower process.
Along the way, I also discovered that there is a website for lost quilts, lostquilt.com. I learned about this site in a recent article in Machine Quilting Unlimited Magazine. The article, by Maria Elkins, is about labeling your quilt. She presents some great tips on creating and labeling quilts for documentation and security purposes. It’s worth a read. Luckily, my quilt was properly labeled with my name and contact information. I’ve already learned that lesson
