Jennifer C.
Yelp
The yarn side is FANTASTIC - great service, great selection, good sales, lots of help available. There's full supplies for knitting, felting, rubber stamping, with more downstairs: embroidery/crewel/needlecraft. You will be able to find the hot new thing, and frequently some odd new interesting technique or material you haven't heard about yet. The proprietor is very social - remembers her customers, takes and posts pictures of the stuff her customers make, runs frequent craft classes and events. She knows what I like to buy, and keeps it in stock.. She points out similar less expensive alternatives at times. She's had me look in her catalog to let her know my color preferences. And I only visit maybe 6 times/year and spend less than $100 usually. Prices are competitive, always lots of interesting samples to check out, free patterns, etc. You may have to wait a few minutes to ring out as there's usually only a couple of sales people and they are very customer-service oriented.
The fabric side is sad. They used to be THE BEST in Central Maine but the shelves keep getting emptier and the selection keeps going downhill. They have not restocked the quilt fabrics in a long time so what left gets more and more dated. There is a handful of other fabrics - fleeces, cordoroy, a few prints, a few OK jerseys. But you can't find the nice jerseys that you need for the fashionable clothes today. The wools and Liberty lawns are beautiful but expensive and have been sitting there for years - never a sale. They have some nice quilting books, quilt fillings, and a fine selection of thread. They don't sell sewing patterns. They have an wide selection of somewhat dated buttons - not trendy. There's a basement full of upholstery fabric...maybe that's their passion.
They sell a nice looking ranges of sewing machines but the salesman shoo's me away when I try to look. Even after I explained I was looking for a new machine, he didn't help me find one - he just guarded the machines. So I went elsewhere.