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After living in Japan for nearly nine years here are several websites you can buy yarn at within Japan. I plan to write another post of international websites you can use to buy yarn in Japan.
1. Amazon.co.jp
Amazon Japan is great to buy a starter kit or tools you can use in your work. The yarn selection is a bit small and there is mostly acrylic available. It is great for buying tools though. I’ve bought my sentro knitting machine, my double point needles, my crochet hook set and a set of interchangeable needles on amazon. They have all been good quality tools and I use them every day.
2. Rakuten.co.jp
Rakuten Japan has a great selection of yarn and tools. The major downside of the site is that you really need a good knowledge of Japanese to use it. Some search terms you can use are かぎ針編み糸（kagibariamiito） which means crochet yarn, or 編み糸(amiito) which means knitting yarn. You can search for different yarn contents too 麻いも (maino) which is hemp, or twine/ ポリエステル polyester/ アルパカalpaca/ウール wool/綿(men) cotton/毛糸(keito) another way to say wool. The biggest yarn brand in Japan is ハマナカ.
3. Poplar-web.com
This is a great website for any fiber art related hobby. Their big focus is yarn and so it is easy to find what you are looking for by clicking around. Again this is a Japanese only site, but since it is mainly yarn, it is easily navigated. If you can read Japanese then I suggest you sign up for their newsletter and maybe even buy their magazine. They are usually having sales and its easy to find the sale as its usually in their header. You can also buy tools and notions here.
4. Morio-hobby.com
This is a great website for any hobby. You can use any of the search terms I used in the Rakuten website description. Again this is a Japanese only site. This site includes hobbies such as felting, crochet, knitting, embroidery, quilting and more. I suggest you take a look at the side menu. The plus of this site is that it specializes in hobbies and tends to be a bit cheaper than other Japanese sites.
5. Hamanaka-jp-crafts.com
Finally an English website! Although you can only see hamanaka brand yarns and tools/notions and there is less choice than on the Japanese website, you can still buy your yarn and get it shipped to you easily without speaking Japanese. However, it is not convenient. You have to fill out an inquiry form and go from there in order to make a purchase, so I suggest you use the English site to find what you are looking for and then transition to another site in order to buy. This is the company who makes most of the yarn available in Japan and sells it at the craft stores.
6. www.irodoristore.com
This is the Daruma yarn store. It’s quite expensive and high-quality yarn. There is some English on the website and it is easier than others to navigate. It’s a beautiful website and has yarn and embroidery thread.
7. Jp.shien.com/aliexpress.com/Wish
These are the most popular places to buy low quality fast fashion items in Japan. You can get yarn here and it will be cheap, but it will be copies of better brands in lower quality. I actually have purchased from all these shops before and find them to be serviceable but nothing to write home about.
You can buy yarn here but it is quite difficult to navigate in English or Japanese. I have never successfully bought something from here.
9. Yahoo Auctions
If you are willing to get 2nd hand yarn, I recommend this. I have bought most of my yarn through this site. The only problem is that you never know what you are going to get exactly. You may get someones whole stash including very old yarn, yarn ends and single 50 gm balls or you may get extremely high quality yarn.
10. Jp.mercari
This is another place you can buy used yarn. I haven’t used mercari to guy yarn but I have used it to buy other things such as furniture and character goods. It’s all been high quality and very easy to use.
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