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| - This quirky little yarn shop that has been around since 1958 has recently moved house, and got a makeover in the process. The new location, at the corner of Parthenais, is charming, with cozy wooden fixtures, a table and chairs in the front window, their famous cone-winding machines on display in the back, and a crystal chandelier in the front window!
For all that charm and class, however, the merchandise inside is decidedly "meh". They stock a small amount of brand-name yarn, things like Patons sock yarn and some of the Stitch 'n' Bitch branded bamboo blend yarn, but these are both craft-store yarns like you can find at Michael's or Omer DeSerres. Aside from that, they have a wall of acrylic yarn at $5.50 per 100g, and also a wall of 100% wool at the same price. I've heard some stories about the old Bobineuse yarn which leave me skeptical, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt because the shop is under new ownership. In any case, we're talking solid, solid yarns in Red Heart-esque logs.
The shop seems to push its cones, as well as its big balls of superbulky yarns, made up of several strands of other yarns for a multi-color and multi-texture effect. Sort of like what Yarnia in Portland OR does, but not as well, because they don't seem to have the range of weights and fiber contents that Yarnia stocks. They also have a small selection of notions (possibly from the 1980s...including a "mohair brush"), and what seems to be a lot of mismatched or no-name bamboo knitting needles. Sort of like what you can buy in bulk from China.
In their previous spot a bit further east on Mont-Royal, I'd poked my head in the door and quickly turned around, realizing that this was *not* the kind of yarn shop I was looking for, yarn-snob as I am. With the new locale and classy atmosphere I thought maybe the shop had seen a change of direction, but although it's less cluttered and slightly better curated than before, it's still a far, far cry from "fancy yarn store" like its exterior suggests.
(So, after poking around their website, I realize now that this rebranding actually signifies a shift in management, as their longtime owner Daniel is retiring and handing over the shop to a new generation. This gives me a lot of optimism, actually. The website is lovely, aims at bilingualism (broken links abound at the moment), and it is full of potential. Extra star awarded for hopes of good things to come.)
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