A disappointing night in London

Tonight found me in London with the interesting choice of sitting on my own in the Youth Hotel all evening, or seeing what knitting clubs I could find.  For once though I'm not going to say where it was that I ended up.  Naming and shaming isn't really fair.

To be as fair as I can I should say that I took them at their word that for as long as they were open people were welcome to drop in and knit... so I did.  Yes it was evening time (but they are open late), and yes there was a beginners knitting class on, but rarely have I felt like I was so unwelcome.

Ok first up, when I wander into a store a hello is always a good start.  Next up, when a customer says they're in town with work, and that they've called in because they're lonely and your website said that people could come in and knit, I would humbly suggest you either say sure come on in, or nicely explain that tonight things are a little different as the classroom downstairs is unavailable.  The yes you are free to knit, but only if you sit at that separate table over there, approach was erm interesting.

Now I don't know about you but a bunch of knitters in a room don't normally ignore each other.  We are on the whole a sociable lot.  It was a bit of a surprise then that in the (long) lulls between instruction any attempt at conversation was utterly rebuffed.  Actually, if I'm honest it wasn't that much of a surprise.  If a tutor had spoken to me like that in a class that I'd paid for, I would have been asking for my money back.  When has it ever been a good instructional technique to say how hard something is to do (casting on!) before the students have even tried... well I could suggest a reason but out would be less than charitable!  The word Bagheera does however spring to mind.

All in all it was a real shame.  The shop is stuffed full of beautiful yarns, they have an amazing range of needles and accessories, they even have some awesome looking project bags... and will I ever go back to buy something?  Not unless it is the last yarn store on Earth... and then only of I'm out of fibre too ;-)