Well that was an expensive lesson!
I emailed them and this is the reply I got. Interesting they didn’t address the salveges at all and 100% of the “variance “. Is in pieces smaller than advertised, up to an inch and 1/2 both directions!
Pamela-
Thanks so much for your email.I have some info and some answers for you that will hopefully help.
Our Fig Tree wool is created and bundled by Weeks Dye Works in North Carolina. Wool is indeed a completely different animal than cotton fabric! Both the size and the dye process makes for a fairly large variance. The size is approximate due to the way that the pieces are dyed and washed and dried. We do not open any of the bundles that come from Weeks but we have always found the wool to be exceptional. The size and color variation is something that is to be expected when dyeing wool. Especially since wool is most often used for appliqué and lots of little pieces are cut, like in our projects, we have never found that we were short for anything. The bundles that come from us, from Fat Quarter Shop or anywhere else, are all exactly the same and come directly from Weeks.
In terms of pricing, our bundle is actually a few dollars less at $178 than the suggested retail price of $182. The Fat Quarter shop's price is $160, $18 less than ours.
We do not mark it up, but we also don't mark it down. We don't discount our fabrics as we are a small shop. The Fat Quarter Shop, on the other hand, discounts many of their items because they deal in bulk. If you want a better deal, they will almost always be able to provide that and we can't compete with that on any level. We also don't offer coupons, sale or free shipping, again because we are a small business. They are a fantastic quilt store, but they are the largest quilt store in the world and can offer all kinds of things we just cannot.
I am grateful that you chose to support our business through us but we unfortunately can't compete based on price. Usually supporting a small business is just more expensive.