Yarn Barn

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Just sharing recent visits. While I am a huge advocate of locally owned restaurants and stores, I am also a huge advocate of kind and respectable customer service. I am only posting this to inform others about the experiences of this particular store- the only specialty yarn store in this city.

My first visit to The Yarn Barn: I walked into The Yarn Barn and inquired about Noro Yarn (my absolute favorite) and received the response in an unnerving loud rude tone "Um, we WON'T and DON'T deal with Noro." I smiled and asked why. The response was that "the distributor is difficult and they don't care." This may very well be true but a simple "I'm sorry, we don't carry Noro but let me show you some comparable yarns" would have sufficed. I went on to buy a skein of sale yarn and was abrubtly told that they would not wind the skein because it was sale yarn (I never even asked about them doing it). For those that don't knit, a skein takes over an hour to manually ball and I have never encountered a store that would not do this complementary. Note that this single "sale" skein was still well over $20.

My second visit to The Yarn Barn: I was excited to try a new project of socks. In an upbeat attitude, I asked if the sales associate (same associate as the first trip) to point me in the direction of their supply of sock yarns. She assisted me by showing me the area as well as what each brand had to offer. I was thrilled that she wasn't obtuse and rude this time around and thrilled that I was on my way to my new project. Once she was done, I told her that I didn't need to be shown the books or patterns, but asked her if she could recommend the title of a good book for a novice sock knitter. She took me to the book section and went over many different options. Again, I was so thrilled that she was so helpful! I went on about my business in selecting my yarn, pattern, book, needles, and markers and checked out. Upon leaving, I notice the same sales associate sitting with another working on, what I believe to be inventory. I waved goodbye to them and told them to have a nice night. I was on cloud nine, a knitting high… ready to tackle my new project. The other associate responded “I’m sorry, if you didn’t get full attention tonight” and I responded, “no worries, she helped me a lot with finding what I needed” (motioning to the sales associate that helped me that was sitting next to her). I hear that woman say to the other woman in a loud rude voice “that’s FOR SURE!” It truly hurt my heart. I never asked her to spend a bunch of time with me, mainly just location guidance. I felt like I had really put her out. It was that same nasty attitude I received when I asked about infamous Noro yarn. I’m sure it wouldn’t have bothered me so much if I wasn’t so excited. But after spending a rather large amount of money in their store and then a comment insinuating that I had consumed too much of her time, really just felt like a stab in the back.

Being the only specialty yarn store in Lawrence, I’m sure that The Yarn Barn won’t care about one person’s poor experiences. However, these experiences really spoil it for those of us who are willing to pay the higher prices to support local businesses. Next time, I will drive the 35 miles to The Studio Knitting Shop in Kansas City or The Yarn Shop in Overland Park, KS, where they actually appreciate their customers with kind words, excellent dispositions, and NORO yarn!