Yarn (Store) Pr0n: Yarn Barn

This is the first part in a three part series on the Meetup group's San Antonio Yarn Crawl. (You would think this was serious journalism.) There was so much to blog about, I decided to break it up into parts.

In case you missed the memo, Yarn Barn in San Antonio is closing. We went on this trip specifically to see the store before it closed.

I spoke with some of the employees there (to my knowledge, the owner was not there that day.) As stated on the sign, the store lost it's lease. As stated on the website, the owner has decided it was a good time to retire. However, the fate of the store is still up in the air. Apparently, it's officially for sale, but no one knows if it will sell or who would buy it. This may be why they don't have any clearance sales going on right now.

They had a good selection of some old friends of mine, including Rowan, Noro, Plymouth, Blue Sky Alpacas and others.

However, it was the selection of books that was truly impressive. This is the book room. They had more books outside the book room as well. They covered all types of fiber arts, as well as art, design, color theory and other related topics. Titian Knitter was psyched to find a book about costuming for her mother-in-law.

This bookcase was in the bathroom, across from the stalls. I kid you not. (One of the employees said it was back stock.)

In case you couldn't tell, the Yarn Barn is a well rounded store for all sorts of fiber artists. Here are some of their needlepoint supplies. They also carry some basic spinning and weaving supplies. (Quilting too, if I'm remembering correctly.)

Here are some needles and notions. As you can see, they have a great selection.

I couldn't resist posting another book shot, with my fellow yarn crawlers looking through the titles. (This isn't even "the book room.")

This was what I was most excited about. While several local stores are supposed to be getting the Noro Kuyeron Sock Yarn, this is the first place I've brick-and-mortar store where I've seen it for sale. We actually arrived at the store about 10 minutes before the shop opened, so I saw a few skeins of it in the window while we were waiting.

Yes, that's Colinette Jitterbug below the Noro. I almost bought some, but I was trying to curb my spending. It was tempting though. I wish I could have bought some books as well.

I asked this employee if I could take a picture of her vest for my blog. (She said she knit it herself a long time ago.) She agreed, as long as I didn't show her face. She has been working at the Yarn Barn for about 30 years. The store has resided in other locations, but the current owner started the business about 37 years ago (if I remember correctly) in an actual barn.

The store is still "old school" in several ways. For one thing, they don't have computers. When you check out they write out receipts by hand.

As we were waiting for everyone to check out, several of us got into a discussion about socks with a woman and her daughter. I think we may have overwhelmed her. Titian Knitter, myself and some others were talking about magic loop versus dpns and started spouting off names of books, like this one and this one. I'd like to think we helped her, at least a little bit.

For our parting shot, I leave you with a look at our lunch at La Fonda. (Those are my Enchiladas Rojas de Queso.)

You can see all my yarn crawl pictures here.