BANGOR – Cityside Yarn Co. closed its Main Street location in Bangor in Feb. 7-12 and moved to the Chapel Hill mall on Outer Hammond Street.

“We’re going to miss being downtown,” said Diane Muir, a salesperson at Cityside. “It wasn’t an easy decision to make.”

One of the advantages of the move, Muir said, is parking. She said parking is an issue that customers cite as a disadvantage at the downtown location. “The move will allow greater customer access,” Muir said.

Another advantage of the move is classroom space. Muir said the store will expand its repertoire of classes and offer more classes in knitting, crochet, spinning and other forms of fiber art. “We’ll have room to bring in people to do classes,” Muir said. “In the summer months, we’ll have knitting outside on the verandah.”

Muir said that knitting and the fiber arts in the Bangor region continue to be strong.

“We hired extra help because we are so busy. We hope [when we move to the Chapel Hill location] people will be even more interested and will want to go beyond the scarf knitting stage,” Muir said.

The store will continue to offer impromptu instruction for those who drop in for help in solving a knitting or crocheting problem.