Why Adela's Yarns is My Kryptonite

Adela's Yarns isn't my favorite store in which to linger and shop. It's too bright and open for my taste, without cozy aisles to wander up and down, and there aren't walls of bins with balls of yarn to juggle in your arms as you browse. It's tucked into this awkward shopping center, where parking is treacherous. It's not even my most local yarn store. (That's Fashion Knit in Walnut Creek, a fine establishment, worthy of any business you want to throw at it. We'll get to them in a couple of weeks.)

In spite of these things, Adela's Yarns is my financial Kryptonite. It doesn't have a bin with random balls of yarn, because Toni keeps every yarn pretty much stocked up. There aren't too many odd balls rolling around to pick up, think twice about, then put back on the shelf. In fact, there aren't many balls at all. Most of the yarn in her store is hung in skeins from display racks. "Just because you only see the one skein, don't think there's not enough. I've got enough of (whatever you're holding) to make a sweater." I don't know how many times I've heard that, but she's never been wrong.

The "whatever you're holding" might be something from Schaefer Yarn. If you saw a color of Schaefer that you loved, but now you can't find it, you might be able to talk to Toni about it, and she'll call up the dyer at Schaefer and ask them to dye a special batch of it for you. She did that for me a couple of years ago. I bought the yarn for my knockoff Bourne Supremacy scarf there, too. When I figured out that I wanted a variegated yarn with those colors, I knew I'd find it at Adela's. She carries the largest stock of Schaefer in the United States.

Your yarn weakness might also be alpaca from Henry's Attic. I bought a skein of Tweedy Alpaca a couple of years ago, and then I thought, "Hey, what if that's not enough? I'd better buy more." I guess I must have thought that a few times, because now I have 2400 yards of the tweed and 660 yards of that chocolate brown. I'm trying to make something out of this batch, because I've sworn that I won't go back there and buy any of the other colors until I've made and worn a garment made from these two. She's got at least a couple of skeins of each colorway.

I was good. I hadn't been in there for more than a year. Then I discovered that Toni was selling Tilli Tomas, and it was my friend's birthday and she really wanted some, and I could go down there and get it that very day. When I walked in, I though, "That's cool. They put up mirrors to make the store look bigger. I wonder where that wall of Cascade 220 went...oh, wait. That's another room. The store's actually bigger now." I stepped past the big Colinette display and down into the new area, and, well, that was it. I was hooked back in.

Every color of Tilli silk and every variety of beaded yarn, hanging right in front of me. "We're a little low, because we just had a show. We're putting together a restocking order." The show might have been Stitches East. I know she packs up much of the store and hauls it down to San Jose for Stitches West every winter, so it wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination. I was too mesmerized to ask, though.

I went in to buy something for my friend, but now I'm the proud owner of enough of the yarn in the 'Ant' colorway to make another SKB. Dammit.

If you're in the area, stop on in and give Toni lots of your money. You won't be able to stop yourself.