Rumplestiltskin is one of the few local yarn stores left in my area, and I went there a couple of Saturdays ago for a crochet hook. The yarn in my recent crochet project is recycled, and I was unsure of the correct size to use with it. Big mistake– I took a size F out of its plastic envelope to test it out. You know that kind of envelope: the one with a convenient slit so that you can remove and replace the hook without damaging its packaging? Whoops. The yarn attendant stopped giving bad advice to an affluent-looking couple to look at me in horror and gasp, “ARE YOU TRYING OUT THOSE HOOKS??”

Not yet aware that I was committing a knitting crime, I replied, “Yes, I’m trying to figure out which one goes with this yarn.” Rumplestiltslady continued to freak out, “YOU CAN ONLY DO THAT IF YOU’RE GOING TO BUY IT!”

At this point I was under the impression that she thought I was attempting to shoplift the hooks or something, so I tried to reassure her, “Oh, I do intend to buy one. I’m just trying to figure out which one. I’m not trying to steal your hook.”

It was then that she intoned the immortal words: “WOULD YOU PAY FULL PRICE FOR A USED HOOK?!?!” ¹

She continued to harangue me for a few minutes about how THERE IS A MANUFACTURER’S POLICY and NOW THAT HOOK IS PROBABLY FOREVER TAINTED. I’ve never been yelled at in a yarn store before, and by the end of her diatribe my hands were shaking. I politely explained to her that I’d worked in a yarn store that carried those hooks and we’d never been informed of the manufacturer’s policy, but she insisted in less-than-civil tones that I was wrong, and now the hook was impure and would thus never command a respectable bridewealth. My sister ended the philippic by announcing that we would not be buying a crochet hook, nor anything else, at Rumplestiltskin ever again. 

I feel like I ought to qualify this story by saying that I think most people, myself included, are more than happy to observe a store’s rules and policies, even when we don’t agree with them; yelling at me rather than simply asking me not to test the hooks was unacceptable. I got my crochet needs met elsewhere [ref Figure 143].

The remainder of the rant is for my fellow West-of-Sacramento knitters. After the mass exodus of Davis (and Woodland) yarn stores last year, Rumplestiltskin is one of our few remaining options. Most online reviews suggest that Rumplestiltskin’s employees are rude or dismissive to younger knitters, and in my experience that has been true. But for the benefit of Rumplestiltskin’s novice clientele, I’d like to note that they give extremely bad and erroneous advice to knitters about their projects. Many of the employees have a very poor sense of yarn substitution and combination, often combined with unwarranted overconfidence– for example, I’m amazed at how frequently my posse has been authoritatively directed to do stranded work incorporating both Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted (single-ply, thick, huge mohair halo) and Misti Alpaca (thin, three-or-four-plies, negligible halo). Additionally, their special order system hasn’t been great– my sister ordered and prepaid a staple yarn in a staple color in October or early November for Christmas, and we recieved it in late February. It seems to me (as both a consumer and former yarn store employee) that there’s a huge movement to differentiate the service and expertise at a bricks-and-mortar store over the discounts offered by online suppliers. Clearly, Rumplestiltskin doesn’t need to do this, so I imagine they don’t need our business that badly.