Yes, it's true.

I walked into a yarn store (with Lauren!), stayed there for a good amount of time, and didn't buy a damn thing. No needles, no patterns, and, most importantly, no yarn. I nearly enabled her to buy some Cascade Fixation, but she (rightfully) resisted and we walked out empty-handed.

So here's the list of yarn stores I've visited this summer, arranged by visited-order:

Los Altos, Uncommon Threads
San Jose, Commuknity
Half-Moon Bay, Fengari
San Carlos, Creative Hands
Capitola, The Yarn Place
San Francisco, Imagiknit

I think a lot of how I react to yarn stores is how things are laid out: if the yarns are all jumbled together and I can't make rhyme or reason out of them, I get frustrated. The big problem with Imagiknit, I think, is that I don't understand their grouping of yarns. Everything is scattered about, so if I'm looking for a specific Rowan yarn, there's different ones in different places all over the store -- I couldn't even find the Calmer, but I found pretty much everything else. That or they'll group yarns together but not organize by color (The Yarn Place does this too -- I had to dig around to get the two skeins of Silky Tweed I wanted). I walked around Creative Hands a couple of times and couldn't find what I was looking for on the first lap. On the second lap, I did find something I wanted, and on my way out the door I found the initial thing I wanted -- in a box on the floor, not at eye level.

Another thing I react to is interaction with the employees: being greeted helps. Walking in and being asked immediately "do you need any help?" is off-putting. That's not a greeting. Not being acknowledged at all? Pretty sucky. The only time we were actually talked to at Imagiknit today? Was when we were standing in the way of yarn stock. Same thing happened at Fengari -- no one said anything to us, and it was pretty off-putting. But sometimes it can get a little grating, as I'm always asked at Soft Horizons if I need any help. I've been going there constantly for the past three years now, and one would assume I'd be considered a regular customer by now. (The one employee who knew us? Got let go. Go figure.) I had a nice chat with the clerk at Creative Hands while she was winding my yarn, but towards the end I felt like it was really tough to leave the conversation and, you know, leave the store.

The only two stores I haven't bought any yarn at were Fengari and Imagiknit, and those are two I didn't enjoy that much (I probably shouldn't have bought anything at the Yarn Place in Capitola either, if we're saying that one shouldn't buy yarn at places one doesn't like). The only store I've visited twice and plunked down the plastic twice? Commuknity. That store makes me wish I was sticking around in the Bay Area, even though I'll be half a block away from Soft Horizons once I get back to Eugene.

But hey, there's still one more yarn store to hit before school starts up. I'm looking at you, Websters!

Oh, and I'll probably be going through the stash once I get back to Oregon and weeding out things that can be sold/swapped/et cetera.