The Beggars are Being Choosy

When I first moved to my city, there was one yarn store. It carried three things: acrylics, fun fur, and ridiculously expensive variations of the two. The nearest real yarn store was 45 minutes away. But when my local store closed, the knitter in me was sad because sometimes you need a yarn fix and any old anything will do.

Months pass. And then, two yarn shops opened up within weeks of each other.

One store is slightly closer, and the parking is much better, so that store becomes my yarn store. They carry a wide selection. The staff, which is the owner, her husband, and whatever friends happen to be around, are helpful and friendly and are obviously as excited about knitting as I am. The store feels homey and there are always people hanging out and knitting. We begin a love affair, and it carries on to this day.

I've never felt comfortable in the other new store, which we will call the bad store because that's what it is. I don't go in much, maybe once every six months, but when I do something doesn't feel right. Then earlier this week I went in, and really thought about what that something is, and I have come to understand that the bad store is the dumbest yarn store ever.

Yes, dumb. Not bad, as in the sell poor quality yarns, because they don't. And not dumb as in the store is owned by people who have never held two sticks in their life, because I know they are accomplished knitters. But, well, let me explain it.

In my eyes, there are two ways to organize a yarn store: by brand or by weight. It makes sense. You want a skein of Cascade 220, you go where the Cascade 220 is. Or you want sock yarn, so you go over to the fingering weight.

Oh, no. Not at the bad store.

All the yarn is stored in big circular bins that hang on the wall. Which would be fine, except they put it in with the ends out. So you can't see any label. Which again might be fine, except for the small detail that the yarn is organized not by brand, not by weight, but by COLOR. All the blues here, all the purples there, and all the greens on the other wall. So you stand and look at all the green yarn, and you can't tell which brand it is, and you can't tell if you're looking at worsted or DK, and you have to pull out 50 skeins to find what you're looking for. Dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb, with a small bucket of hate thrown in for good measure.

And we won't even go into the fact that the bad store's owner drives a Hummer.