Tag Archives: site news

Shop is down for the weekend as a precaution

Well.  This is an interesting situation.

I’ll preface the info below by saying that if you’ve ever purchased from the shop, your data is safe.

As it pertains to security issues in the IT community, there’s a thing called responsible disclosure and today it failed miserably thanks to a lack of communication.

Typically what happens is a software vulnerability is found, disclosed to the developer.  They fix it and release the update and after a couple of days, the vulnerability is shared with the public as a whole and hopefully by now, most people have already updated.  We all go on with our lives a little safer for this process.  This is supposed to allow things to get fixed before they’re exploited by “bad people”.

Continue reading Shop is down for the weekend as a precaution

Blame Canada? Shipping realities

From time to time, I get an email from someone who wanted to purchase something from the shop but got sticker shock when they went to check out when they saw the shipping price.  Most times, people are understanding when I explain but there have been a couple of nasty ones lately complete with profanity and I mean, come ON.  Really?

The cost of shipping is an unfortunate “feature” of living in Canada and in fact a large part of what made me hesitate so long to even open the shop up in 2020.

We have a small population density for the huge landmass we live on.  For instance, our land mass is 1.6% larger than the US but we have about 1/10th the population.  We’re 40 times larger than the UK and we have just over half the population.

That means that packages are fewer for every kilometre (mile) travelled and so we pay more to ship.  What’s also really unfortunate is that through nearly every carrier, I can often ship for less to Florida than I can to Calgary which is less than 240miles (400kms) from me.

Compounding the issue is our postal system is terribly inefficiently run (Crown corp and no real accountability, very frequently mis-routing packages which costs a lot of money and time – i.e. my parcel that came through customs in Richmond BC had no business going to Quebec on the way to Alberta, then there was the pensions debacle that we’re still paying for… ) and fuel prices.

With fuel prices soaring, Canada Post for instance has started adjusting their fuel surcharges on a weekly basis.  Yes, weekly increases.  That means that a quote I give on Friday is out of date on Monday and not usually in my favour.  All of the parcel companies are doing similar things and recommending that shippers evaluate their shipping charges regularly because of this. Continue reading Blame Canada? Shipping realities

Pushing Forward Back – or something like that

Some of you may have noticed I have updated Archaic Arcane’s banner at the top of the site. I’ve put it on a rotation with the old banner, so here it is again if you see the old one above.

This came about finally due to a project I’m working on right now but realistically, I’ve been wanting an actual logo for almost 10 years.

I let it marinate in my mind and would periodically think about it but nothing really spoke to me.  Then at the beginning of July, I began a collaboration project.  I can’t say much about it until later in the month but one of the things they asked for was a copy of my logo in PNG format and a transparent background.

Whoops! I guess I better make one? They’re going to want business cards too, aren’t they?  Oh boy. Nothing like a little pressure to spur some action! Continue reading Pushing Forward Back – or something like that

The shop is up and running!

As I mentioned in last week’s post, I’ve decided to finally set up the shop completely.  With the way we all do things changing from day to day, this seemed like the right time.

For years, I’ve mentioned in posts that I would put this or that into the shop when I had a chance.  Now that my IT work and sewing machine repairs have slowed to a halt due to the pandemic, it’s bubbled to the top of the list. Everything’s been photographed and a description added.  I’ve tried to be as descriptive as possible but do check attached photos as well.

This means : Continue reading The shop is up and running!

Announcement – Online shop closure – maybe?

Earlier this weekend, I posted on Facebook that I was closing the shop here at Archaic Arcane.  I guess I worded it poorly and some people thought that I meant that Archaic Arcane was going away altogether.  Let me clarify.  This is not the case!

SHOP.archaicarcane.com is going away as of December 31, 2018.  Only the online shop.

That’s all.  I’m still servicing machines. I’m still teaching classes.  I’m still making videos.  I’m still posting up here on the site as time permits.  All of the patterns that I had in the shop are still available at Craftsy Yup.  Not even a week after I posted this, Craftsy punted about 90% of its designers off its site – me included.  As of now, I’m taking a step back to evaluate how I want to continue to make patterns and possibly parts and classes available.  It may mean a resurrection of the shop after all.  In the meantime, if you need anything from me, go ahead and hit that “Contact” link in the upper right corner and we can talk about what you need. 

I made this decision for a few reasons: Continue reading Announcement – Online shop closure – maybe?

Spin me round faster – announcements about site and classes

Where have I been?

circa May 2017ish? – 6 months spinning.   Merino / Alpaca 93g 325m 2-ply spun worsted/semi worsted.

Some months ago, in order to feed my budding interest in spinning, I joined the local Weavers Guild.  Since then, I’ve accidentally become more and more involved with the guild.

How does one become accidentally involved? In stages.  😉

It started out with me doing some tune-ups on the guild’s wheels.  Tune-ups that are still ongoing with some of the consumables being replaced.  While I’ve been doing these tune-ups, the questions naturally come about – why are you using this instead of that?  What about when this happens, etc.

Then it moved on to the talk of me teaching a class.  Continue reading Spin me round faster – announcements about site and classes

Scope and Archaic Arcane

When I started posting about sewing machines, the intention was to cover what I was doing along with some of the maintenance we should all be doing and some of the basic repairs that nearly everyone could do.

Eventually, I started to get requests for certain posts and videos which is extremely flattering.  It told me that people were enjoying – and learning from – what I was doing.  Some of the requests have been excellent suggestions and often form the basis of the posts you’ve seen on this site. Continue reading Scope and Archaic Arcane

A little wizardry – overdue maintenance on Archaic Arcane

Last week, support for the operating system on the computer that brings you ArchaicArcane.com was discontinued.  This is not unlike when Microsoft said no more XP.

What this means for AA is that I need to do some behind the curtain maintenance before I can do the on-stage updates.  I’m working on many things at once and you’ll start to see some posts hopefully this month.

The server and a quilt I was working on last month were the top priorities keeping me away from the site.  Now though, I have lots to say, I just need to take care of the server first so you can read about it when I tell it! 🙂 Continue reading A little wizardry – overdue maintenance on Archaic Arcane