SHAIDIRECT LTD
Direct selling over the internet, from one office in Cardiff.
Seven lines. Each one is a run that came in, was washed once, measured unit by unit and written up on the same day. The order of the page is width, widest first, so the pins step leftwards as you read down.
The list is a record of what is in the room, not a range. There is one card to a line and one line to a run of cloth, and when the run is gone the card goes with it rather than carrying on over a second run that measures differently.
Nothing here is grouped by room or by use, because that way of sorting hides the thing you actually need when you are buying at a distance. Width does the sorting instead. If you came with a measurement, you can run your eye down the pins and stop where they stop being plausible for your table or your pad, and only then read the words.
Six figures on every card, in the same order every time. Nothing is averaged and nothing is taken from a maker’s sheet.
Everything measured here was measured after one wash at the temperature the care label carries, dried flat. A figure taken before that wash is a cut size, and a cut size on a card is a number that will not hold.
Recorded width, pinned
Plain weave, linen and cotton, unbleached. Washed at 40.
The hem lies down without pressing, which on a plain weave is the thing that usually goes wrong. Nothing in this run wanted a second press.
Recorded width, pinned
Brushed cotton, twill, undyed. Washed at 30.
Brushed cloth moves more than it looks as though it should, so this is the widest tolerance on the list. Printed rather than rounded down.
Recorded width, pinned
Cotton drill, olive. Washed at 60.
I took this one for the tie length. Nine hundred millimetres goes round an adult and ties without a knot the size of a fist; short ties are why aprons get abandoned.
Recorded width, pinned
Cotton, waffle weave, natural. Washed at 60.
A waffle weave shrinks in the first wash and then stops. Cut at 520 mm, measured at 500 mm after, and it is the 500 that is on the card.
Recorded width, pinned
Plain weave, linen, stone. Washed at 40.
The one line where length decides it: 1800 mm is what can be cut without a join. A runner offered to me with a join in it is a run I turn down.
Recorded width, pinned
Cotton canvas, plain weave, ecru. Washed at 40.
Cut 10 mm under the pad on purpose, so the pad fills the corners instead of the cover standing proud of them. The tightest tolerance here, because canvas barely moves.
Recorded width, pinned
Plain weave, linen, stone. Washed at 40.
Cut from the same cloth as the runner, so the two agree on a table. Square to 14 mm across the run, which on a napkin I am satisfied with.
A line leaves for one of three reasons, and the card comes down on the same day rather than being left up with a note on it.
The run is finished. That is the ordinary one: the units are committed, the last parcel goes, and the card comes off. Nothing is back-ordered against cloth that is not here, because the next run will have its own spread and its own tolerance and will not be the same line.
The second run measures differently. If I take a second run of the same cloth and it comes in outside the tolerance printed on the card, it goes up as its own card with its own figures. The old card comes down. The same name over two different sets of measurements is the oldest trick in selling cloth at a distance, and it is the one thing on this site I am most careful about.
Or I was wrong about it. A line I would not put on my own table does not stay up to clear the run. In that case the units go back to the maker if they will take them, and the card comes down either way.