Tea and Cakes

Note: while this post is essentially about buying wool, it’s also about customer service, and shopping experiences.

Running/working in a yarn shop must be like working within your stash. Every day you’re there, surrounded by lovely yarn in all sorts of lovely colours, with loads of pattern books filled with loads of lovely patterns. (I’m ignoring novelty yarns and fugly patterns).

It must be hard then, seeing people coming in, touching your yarns, taking them out of the cubby holes you put them in, looking at them, smelling them, coveting your things.

That’s the only explanation for the reaction I got trying to buy wool yesterday.

My mission was to get some sock yarn, a bit more of the black and red acrylic for the dog’s blanket, and yarn for a cardigan pattern I’d like to make. I also wanted to have a bit of a browse. It’s a nice shop. Organised. Tidy. Textured. Colourful.

I like to touch yarns, to get a feel for them. That’s the whole point of going to a shop instead of buying online. I needed to check the labels too, as the cardigan pattern calls for a discontinued yarn, so I needed to find a substitute. How the yarn washes, and what it’s made of is also important to me.

As I picked up a ball of Debbie Bliss Cathay, to see what it was made of and how it felt (it has silk in it, so it’s not for me), the ageing assistant came over. Not to ask if I needed help. Not to admire it with me (as happened in the last shop I was in where the owner encouraged me to pick up some new luxury yarn she’d just got in as it felt so good). No, she came over to rearrange the wool on the shelf below. Right where I was standing.

I found a lovely colour for my cardigan, and picked out 6 balls, checking the dye lots so that the colours would all match. I chose my sock yarn too, and headed to the counter. My arms were full, and the acrylic was right by the counter. I put the 7 balls of wool on the counter.
The assistant looked at me blankly.
I smiled back.
“You want to buy these?” she asked, unbelievingly.
“Yes please” I replied chirpily.
She held up the sock yarn.
“You know this is €5.50?”
“Yes, that’s fine”
“And six balls of this?” she asked, as though she couldn’t imagine anyone, especially not me, making anything involving that much wool.
“Yes” I said, not quite so chirpily. (I didn’t explain that the pattern calls for 5 balls and I was getting a spare for just in case or socks. I didn’t think I needed to explain myself. I don’t generally explain what I plan on cooking when I’m at the supermarket, for example.) “And I just need to grab one red and one black of those there” I added, pointing at the acrylic that was within her reach but blocked from mine by the counter and another person: I assumed the shop owner.
The assistant looked at me blankly.
The shop owner ignored me.
“Excuse me… erm… could I just get past… just want to get… sorry… erm… phew”
I put the two balls of acrylic on the counter and smiled at the assistant.
“These too?” she asked.
“Yes please, and a set of 3.25mm double pointed needles please.”
“Excuse me?”
“Double pointed needles. 3 1/4mm please.”
They sold two types. She fetched one. I didn’t ask for a choice.
“That’s €37.50″ she said, her tone suggesting that she fully expected me to pat my pockets and say “Oh, sorry, I only have €5. I’ll just take one ball of fun-fur instead.”

Then I pulled out my credit card.
A look of terror crept into her eyes. The shop owner was there, she had to accept it, had to use the machine.
“Do you know the numbers?” she asked.
I assumed she meant my pin, and assured her that I did.

I paid, she bagged up my yarn and needles and I left. And remembered why I shop on the internet.