Like every yarn hoarder I have a pipe dream of someday having a yarn shop. I want mine to be a bookstore/coffeeshop/internet cafe/yarn shop where people can bring their pets. Who knows if this would ever happen. But even with just the etsy shop I have a fairly strong opinion of how I want to treat my customers - because first and foremost I am a consumer. And I will always want to treat customers the way I want to be treated when I’m shopping.

After Ramona’s party a few weeks ago I picked up a fun book called “Greetings from the Knit Cafe” It’s fun and has a lot of patterns that are very comfy looking. I particularly liked the stretches for knitters in the back but really, it made me want to travel and see other knit stores. Not to steal ideas, but to experience the little fiber families that we have at our LYS. I’ll admit that my very first experience at my LYS wasn’t super fantastic but I didn’t feel outright animosity - not at all! Which brings me to my first experience with a yarn shop in the bay area…

Adela’s Yarn
Castro Valley

It’s literally around the block from where I’m staying, this was the first shop I went to. A lot of Colinette, best collection of Tilli Tomas I’ve seen in person. The people who work there, however, were totally unacceptable to me.

I was perusing the yarn selections which were nice but were primarily commercially spun handpainted - and in the wake of dyeorama I couldn’t get around that. I knew exactly where to get a lot of that yarn undyed for one third the price and paint it my damn self.

But that Tilli Tomas was something to see. I’d seen some at a nice shop in Birmingham in December and have regretted not buying some ever since. And I’ve seen the new stuff on kpixie but I’ve been hesitating to buy it without feeling it first. Well, I’ll admit, it’s delightful to touch. The silk is like Fiesta’s La Luz and it’s softly plied with beautiful crystal beads or stones. Gorgeous stuff. Forty five bucks a skein.

I wandered around the store fondling yarn and overheard a saleslady explain how people go get crap at other stores and think they’re knitting but they get the “real” knitters and crocheters at their store, not just crafters. Nice. And an odd attitude to take for a store with high end but nonetheless some novelty-type yarns.

So I was gearing myself up to buy a skein or two of tilli tomas and I had picked up a silver thread cutter pendant which I’ve been wanting when a nice saleslady (the other saleslady) came by and asked how I was doing. At the time I was looking at the Giotto thinking about the sprout sweater I’ve been working on. So I told her I’m working on a sweater in the Giotto.

She asked me if I’d seen the new Colinette pattern book that was all Giotto, which I hadn’t but I’d been wanting to. So she took me over and we were admiring the lovely patterns. I told Jocelyn, who is tolerating all the yarn shops very nicely, that what I thought was really cool about Colinette yarns is there’s no dye lot really, each skein is handpainted and different.

And then the other lady (the not-nice saleslady) who worked there started squawking and raving. One of the residence knitters said very nastily “Oh she’s smart.” Then I had to listen to the rude saleslady explain to me in a really condescending and repetitive manner that there really are colinette dye lots and how I’d have to buy them all at the same time for them to match. I guess she hadn’t heard that I already have 12 friggin balls of giotto and I’ve been alternating skeins every other row. But she kept saying that there really are Colinette Dye lots and how you can tell how they were painted at different times.

Now that i look back on it I think she may have thought I was saying there are no dye lots like the red heart acrylics say there are no dye lots but clearly she wasn’t listening to me. She was trying to be snooty and assert her “yarn dominance”, an attitude I never tolerate well, and apparently trying to “upsell” me, a tactic which I tolerate even less.

Why stores who think they can behave snobbishly to customers and treat them like they’re morons believe that this is a successful sales tactic is beyond me.

But she kept going. Really we’re talking two-three minutes of this woman saying things and not listening to me. Every once in a while I would look over at the nice saleslady and try to gauge how she felt about her coworker’s behavior. Mostly she just looke embarassed. Then I asked rude saleslady if she was the owner of the store. She said yes. So I asked “So is your name Adela?” to which she said “there is no Adela”. That was whenI set down the small pile of purchases I’d accumulated so far. Jocelyn said “I’m thirsty! Let’s go get a drink!”, I turned to the nice saleslady and said, “Thank you for being so nice.” and we left. I wasn’t going to buy a lot there yesterday but I ended up buying nothing.

The good news is that Jocelyn and Chris are regulars at the sushi restaurant just next store so we went back to eat there last night. Now the sushi restaurant seriously rocks. Like RAWKS. We sampled a little of everything and every single thing we ate was tasty. A great fusion of tastes and textures, some fun experiments. (Did you see the PB J Sushi Roll?? Holy CRAP is that good! - Crunchy Peanut Butter, Macadamia nuts, avocado rolled up, cut up, topped with strawberry jelly, whipped cream, sprinkled with dark chocolate chips) I met the owner and chef (who has a photo of himself with Iron Chef Sakkai!) and he was very nice. So even steven as they say.

Go for the yarn if you want. Ignore the bitchy sales woman, and stay for the Sushi. Tell Stanley I said hi and he should still move to Albuquerque!