Avril

By anonymous on Monday, August 25, 2008 at 02:47PM PDT

Great store! A little tricky to find, without knowing how to read the street signs, but we figured out where the one-way street was (one block up from the busy two-way street as you come out of the JR station or the giant 7-floor craft store with the knitting sheep clock!), and eventually realized that the big green vertical signs on lampposts had the numbers "2-34", etc.. the numbers are smaller when you are closer to the giant shopping arcade/strip mall right outside of the Kichijoji JR station.

There is a sandwich-board with "Avril" on the one way street pointing into the little alley that leads to the entrance - if you hit a 7-11 on the one way street, you've gone too far! (unless you're coming from the opposite direction, in which case you are almost there!)

Tiny store, helpful staff - one woman speaks a bit of english, and gave me a page that had translations from kanjii (I think) to english for "wool", "silk" etc so I could figure out the yarn tags. Have an idea of how many grams you want, so you'll spend less time converting back and forth from meters/yards to grams.

By anonymous on Friday, October 03, 2008 at 09:58PM PDT

Thanks for the detailed directions! They helped a lot.

The "one-way street" refered to above has a bright sign that says "Nakamichi" across it -- I've added a picture. You have to walk five or six blocks before you get to Avril. It's on your left if you're coming from the train station, and it's marked by a small white sign that (happily) says "Avril" in English. I've also added a picture of this, although it's harder to see.

Their yarn is beautiful, unusual and reasonably priced. If you go here looking for one specific thing, they might not have it, but if you're just browsing, it's awesome!

Also, they have lots of white yarn in different materials, textures and thicknesses, presumably for dying yourself.