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| - What a super cute shop in the Plateau! Located right down Gilford from Metro Laurier, it's in a great location, and combines two delightful warm cozy things - tea and yarn.
The space is small but not crowded, and holds a few tables, a comfy couch, lots of yarn, and a picturesque tea bar in the back. There's even an itty-bitty kid's corner with some games, tucked in a little nook on the side. Everything is bright and clean, like your fastidious grandma's kitchen and parlor, and it's very inviting.
I'm admittedly a yarn snob, and this shop seemed to be catering to me specifically. A great selection of Québecois/Canadian specialty yarns, paired with some classic imports. All pretty highbrow. Biscotte & Cie, Handmaiden, Fleece Artist, IndigoDragonfly, Hedgehog Fibers, Alchemy, and some others. I was impressed that they had a full range of Jameson 2-ply jumperweight, which is a very useful yarn but not always so easy to come by.
Everything was beautiful - lots of luscious sock yarns in bright handpaints. The downside was really that with so many nice things, all very similar...it's like an expensive cupcake boutique. Fancy cupcakes are awesome, and great to throw some cash at once in a while. But they don't sustain you, and if you indulge in all of them, you start going into sugar-shock. I felt my wallet threatening sugar-shock in this shop. And I wonder how their classes work, because although I'm all for having beginner knitters learn on nice yarn, I also know that not so many people like plunking down megabucks on their first project, with silk and mohair and cashmere.
That said, I definitely took home a lovely skein of Handmaiden Casbah sock yarn (my sweet-tooth fix for the moment), and will probably come back the next time I want something extra special and local to send to a friend. And the tea is tempting - it might be just the right way to enjoy this shop, with a cuppa and a long cozy sit in the shop windows with a knitting project.
(By the way, this shop seems to be mostly francophone, but I'm still new to the language politics around here so don't take this as gospel. I just know that my friend and I were speaking English to each other the whole time we were there, and the salespeople used exclusively French to us. For what it's worth.)
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