For The Love Of Thread...

I had the weirdest experience today while out buying some DMC that I had run out of.

There are two places that stock the threads in my small little town and I am grateful for it but geeze could it get any weirder???

The first shop is the one I always buy from if I can due to the fact that I really don't like going to the other one and which will become clear in a bit.

Shop #1 isn't a cross stitch shop at all but more a "little of this, and a little of that" craft shop.  He mainly stocks wool and knitting supplies but also a bit of other stuff aswell as Herbal Medicine.  Granted he has a smallish shop which has two smaller rooms aswell.  He has put the cross stitch stuff in one of those small rooms and today when i went to go buy threads I walked in to find the room full of boxes.  I literally had to climb over one box, squeeze myself into a corner and bend over the other boxes to be able to reach the threads.  Unfortunately he was out of stock on 4 of the colours I needed so this meant a trip to the other shop.

Shop #2.  There are a few reasons I don't like buying from this shop.  Firstly they fix sewing machines in this small shop and the threads smell very strongly of the machine oil.  This is not a problem on it's own and threads can always be washed and I always wash my cross stitch when I complete one.  I bought threads one time from them and was winding them onto the bobbin and the thread just kept breaking.  Obviously something had been at their threads and had caused weak spots and I had to threw all of those away.  But the absolute worst thing about it is that way you get treated.

On the few occasions I have gone in there, because I had to have the colours urgently, I always walk straight to their stand, paper in hand and start pulling the colours.  Yet it never fails that the lady will stand up from her desk, walk up to me saying not a word and stand right by me staring until I'm done.  Today she came and stood at my back slightly to my left and watched my every move.  It makes me feel like I have thief written on my forhead and makes me highly uncomfortable to say the least.

Yet next time I run out of some threads I will happily clammer over boxes and feel like a thief just so that I can carry on with a project.  Makes one wander what else we would put up with all for the love of our stitching.