The Secret Yarn Shop

There's a yarn shop in a neighboring city -- with wildly short hours -- that I finally got inside today, since I was there during the unique and brief ;-) opening times.

Normally, I am ALL ABOUT the wool --- and am still on the search to find that fantasy-candy-box shop I know is out there somewhere, just waiting for me. This little store offered the EXTRA mystery of lace-curtained windows, so that I couldn't see inside past the window display. I should point out that the window display had a few balls of sock wool dyed in Hundertwasser colorways. This is so completely over-the-top, that I've been mentally circling this shop like a hawk.

Finally - finally - TODAY - I pushed that door open, and was transported to what looked like the attic scene from Jumanji. Baskets and bowls and trunks of yarn -- stacked on chairs, stacked on the floor, stacked on each other. The entire shop was the size of an L-shaped closet; and behind the counter spanning the length of the room stood the tiny, white-haired woman who just made it all OKAY that it was such a jumble of woolen chaos, with abbreviated hours of business. :-)

She told me that the cabinet pictured here has held embroidery floss for decades. Some of the paper boxes --- no, what am I saying? -- MOST of the paper boxes inside were yellowed with age. She seemed a little embarrassed that I wanted to take a picture of it, (although she laughed and said I could go ahead) so I told her it was for my Mother. :-) And then she laid the trays out for Eliza to look through all the colors. She was really, really sweet to Eliza. We bought several colors.

When I asked for a business card, she told me she didn't have those, but wrote out the hours for me on a piece of scrap paper. It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a store visit as much as I did today. She ordered some Hundertwasser sock wool for me, too. :-)