WWYD? problem with fabric order - how to respond?

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Hi all, not sure if this is the best place but I'd welcome opinions...

I ordered some rather expensive fabric and my curtain maker had massive issues with it. She didn't tell me until after she had used some of the fabric to make one blind (which I have now paid her for), but there were bleach spots in a number of places, the pattern had 'bled' and it was impossible to match the pattern when using two pieces of the fabric. It's hand printed so I understand there will be 'imperfections' but the blind doesn't look great tbh, and I don't want to use the rest of the fabric.

I emailed the company (with pics) and they have basically said they agree that it's not alright (see below, for anyone who can be bothered to read it!), and offered me 10% off the next order. I spent 220 on the fabric, and 150 on it being made into a blind... I'm just not sure how to respond, I certainly won't be ordering from them again and I feel like they should give me at least a partial refund.

What do people think?

Response from the company:

We do have a quality control process in our Asia office (where our fabric has previously be sent from,) but I totally agree, you should not have received imperfect fabric, many apologies for this. We now send all our fabric through a warehouse in the UK who are extremely thorough and scan all fabric when it comes into the warehouse for any small imperfections. We hope for this issue to never come up again.

Our fabric is hand screen printed and as such there is a small amount of room for error. Lining up the screens are done by eye, so I can see that there has been an issue here with the fabric not exactly lining up. Again, I am so sorry for this, I really understand your frustration. To apologise we woud like to give you 10% off your next order. Just email me before you place your next order and I will send you a unique code to apply on check out.

I am a curtain maker, and this does happen.

In an ideal world if we find flaws we try and get the client in to see the fabric before we cut and if they don't want to proceed whoever placed the order handles the return. In your case the uneven nature of the print would probably fall under character of the fabric but the bleach spots would be unacceptable, and any reputable fabric house would replace.

Sometimes for whatever reason the flaw isnt spotted until too late, however once the fabric has been cut getting a refund is trickier - your best bet is to try for a refund on the uncut portion, ie write off the length that went into the blind. Again, reputable houses will happily send out a replacement length - they sometimes want the flawed peice back, at their expense of course but that is why I would write off the used piece, and make a claim based on the unused portion.

If your curtain maker has already started make up on the second item - sounds like she may have as experiencing difficulties with the pattern match? - then it is harder still, but again the name manufacturers in the uk would IME replace, and in your circs I would go into bat on that angle.

10% next order is quite unusual, even someone buying a lot of fabric is unlikely to need to go back to one particular house in a hurry, there is so much choice out there

Sorry so long! Good luck

Sinclair, thank you so much for replying--I really appreciate the knowledgeable advice. I just wasn't sure how to handle this. My curtain maker is great, and really did her best, but the print is geometric so the pattern mis-match does show. I am very picky, but I think I may just have to live with it.

Nothing has been done with the remaining fabric, so perhaps the way to go would be to respond asking to return what is left for a refund. I won't be giving them my custom again, much as I love their fabrics, so 10% off the next order is rather pointless!

great news that the other piece is complete - you have a much stronger case.

picky is good - that is the whole point of getting your curtains made to measure, to get exactly what you want!

Really hope you get the refund or a replacement piece at very least, good luck.