Shops Out Of Time

We went to Berkeley today for a family gathering and early birthday dinner and unexpectedly had a bit of time in the afternoon for some shop-wandering, ending up at two stores that though their contents couldn’t be more different, both seemed like reliquaries rather out of time. The first place was the Lacis Museum of Lace and Textiles. The friendly folks at the Albany yarn store k2tog directed Pica to go to Lacis to find some fine mercerized thread for lace knitting. This storefront and museum, which has been around since 1965, has a fantastic collection of materials, tools, and resources for textile crafts. But not Joann’s Fabrics sorts of crafts. Rather, these are for crafts that are arcane enough that we were both gobsmacked that anybody still practices these. There were the fifty-seven different sorts of tatting shuttles. The doll’s heads for making interesting tassel forms. The horn thimbles. The Battenberg lace kits. And a full range of corset-making supplies, including both plastic and metal stays; the place offers workshops as well and a DVD on corset-making. Pica found her thread, but the true prize was a specially-made wrist yarn holder, good I think for knitting socks while going hiking.

The second store was Al Lasher’s Electronics on University Avenue which has been in Berkeley since 1960 but I don’t think I’ve ever set foot in there before. Electronics components stores are very thin on the ground nowadays, the professional market for these long having given way to mail-order and now online places like Digikey and Mouser. Nevertheless, Al Lasher’s has somehow hung on, and judging from the numbers of customers passing through, still seems to be doing okay. One woman came in there for wiring supplies to resurrect a turntable she found on Craig’s List, the previous owner having been a photographer who didn’t actually play it but rather used it for a backdrop to a photo shoot. Some of the components I think have been in the store since the 1960s, or as they say on their web page, “we tend not to throw things away.” I particularly liked the two tube-testing machines up near one of the front windows (remember those, commonly found in supermarkets and hardware stores in the 1970s). A sign over these said these testers don’t really tell you that much, other than if the tube is shorted out or not, but all the tubes we sell at this store are good. I didn’t buy anything today, but the store has now been added to my places to shop in Berkeley list.

Today, by the way, is the sixth anniversary of Feathers of Hope!