Atelier Marin — Local services in San Rafael

The following is the letter I wrote to Amanda, the owner. Fortunately, my sweater turned out wonderfully despite my problems with Atelier (YouTube was the most helpful.) Hope you have better luck! I have now spent $760 at Atelier Marin, almost all of which was for private or class lessons. These lessons created more problems than the helpful assistance I had hoped for and expected from paid instruction.

I am quite frustrated because in almost every one of those lessons I have been given instructions which turned out to be incorrect, requiring multiple rows of unknitting. Your instructors have been very apologetic and mean well. I believe these mistakes have been because they do not know their own limitations and did not read the pattern I brought in carefully and correctly, or at all.

I know I chose a complex sweater pattern that has tricky features, such as German short rows, incorporating newly made stitches into an existing pattern, and making Raglan seams. However, instead of carefully reading what the pattern said and letting me know they didn't quite understand, they forged ahead, giving me bad instructions that then had to be undone by the next instructor, who then also knitted parts incorrectly requiring much unknitting by the next instructor and by me. They have also given me contradictory instructions. I have spent a large amount of time and money undoing their mistakes or having the instructor undo previous instructors mistakes.

As you can imagine, I am not happy with spending this much on instruction only to find that I am now able to make the pattern correctly using only YouTube videos. You have a beautiful store and well-meaning instructors, but I believe I have been led astray on several occasions, most recently by R, who was also apologetic when he realized what he had done. However, this was the...

I have been a customer for 6-8 years, and will never shop here again. I returned 3 skeins of yarn the day after I bought them, untouched, packaging intact, when I realized the colors weren’t going to work in the project I had going. I had my receipt and the bag from their store. They outright refused to give me my money back, and gave me a gift certificate instead, telling me they do NOT keep records of the returns, so don’t lose it!! This was a $50 purchase might I add. Well, of course I have moved and the paper got lost, so I’m out the $50. It doesn’t seem right that they make no record of these transactions like most businesses, or Make any effort to their customers to keep track of this. Every time I go by this store I...

I visited this store as a brand new knitter and was absolutely delighted with the helpful assistance I received from the staff. They helped me choose a pattern, yarn, knitting needles and gave me encouragement. Such very nice ladies!

I will also add that the shop, itself, is so cozy. Came in on a rainy afternoon and the warmly lit little store in the handsome old building was inviting. Well-stocked and inspiring...