the wollmeise shop

When I lived in Vancouver, I got to meet lots of knitters. Whenever a 'modern' knitter(as in someone who is familiar with ravelry) found out I was German the inevitable question would be whether I knit with Wollmeise yarn and wether I've been to their shop. I declined (it wasn't until the summer after I moved back to Germany that I purchased my first skein of Wollmeise) and thought how strange the whole 'Wollmeise hype' was - even 'down to earth' Canadian knitters seemed to start drooling as soon as they heard the word Wollmeise.

Fast forward a year and I've knitted through one skein of fingering weight Wollmeise but let's be honest, I'm not a fan. I prefer more fluffy, 'natural looking' fibers like alpaca and wool over the Wollmeise's merino. But my mom bought a one month unlimited rail ticket for two persons. Considering it doesn't even take four hours to go to the Wollmeise shop in Pfaffenhofen, Bavaria we had the stupid idea of going there... just to have a look and see what the hype is all about. Also eight hours on the train means lots of time to knit :)

It was a ca.15 minute walk from the train station. Not a problem. Unless it's 35°C (95°F) outside and there's no shade and it's about noon. Oh well, I guess someone who's crazy enough to go on a four hour trip to a yarn store across the country can't complain about the weather. August isn't the most popular yarn shopping season for a reason.

Once inside you're greeted by some strings of hearts. I'm not allowed to post pictures of strangers so I can't show you a picture of the entire store but it's a decent sized yarn store with shelves on three sides stuffed with colorful yarn and two couches and a coffee table in the middle. There were about 15 customers when we got there, including Austrians and French people.

If you're not familiar with Wollmeise yarn, it's hand dyed yarn that is dyed in Bavaria. It's famous for the great colors, as you can see above.

They had lots of 'Nobody is Perfect' skeins - meaning either the weight is off or there's a knot somewhere.

The shop is nicely decorated with lots of knitted samples. The name of the colorway of the dressed up skein is 'young mouse' - very cute idea(and gorgeous color!)

Of course we couldn't go to a yarn shop halfway across the country without buying at least one skein each. Well we ended up buying for than just one skein each but you'll have to wait until next week because I didn't get a chance to take any decent pictures of our yarn yet. In the picture above my mom is winding a skein of lace that I bought - the name of the color is 'Ruby Thursday'; isn't it a great color for a Christmas cardigan?

If there are some Wollmeise fanatics out there who haven't had the pleasure of visiting their store yet - I hope this gave you an impression of what it looks like. If you're in the area I definitely recommend visiting their little shop - the staff is really nice and helpful, their selection of colors and yarn weights is great and it's a nice place to meet knitters. Not to mention that it's pretty entertaining to see how people bring empty suitcases to the store and try to fit as many skeins in there as possible :)

Damp

This is just a quick 'in between classes' post. Here are some pictures I took during our short trip to Damp - a tiny village by the Baltic sea. There are two things in Damp: a rehabilitation center and hundreds of vacation homes that look alike and were built in the 70s and 80s. We spent three days up there visiting my dad. He's doing really great after his hip replacement surgery but giving him his camera wasn't a very good idea. He tends to do funny poses to get great shots - not a very good idea if you're using crutches and you're not supposed to do awkward poses.

On my birthday I went to Flensburg with my sister and mom to go yarn shopping! Can you imagine a better activity for birthday?! Here's what I got:

Drops Alpaca yarn for the still light tunic I've been wanting to knit forever. I casted it on a couple days ago and it knits up great! Easy pattern (I wasn't too sure if I'd like it because I wasn't too happy with Veera's instructions for the color affection shawl but so far I really like it!) and lovely yarn - as always. You seriously can't go wrong with drops alpaca!! I wanted to get a light gray color but the yarn store didn't have ten skeins of gray so I went with this gorgeous color. I'll share an update as soon as I have more than a couple of rows to show ;)

This yarn is actually more of a raspberry color - my favorite!!
I wanna make a long cardigan with some lace details. I didn't find a pattern I liked so I'm going to design my own cardigan! So excited!!!
But first I have to finish the tunic / dress....
I couldn't pass this yarn either... I wanna make the olive sweater by Helga Isager but $8 is rather pricy for a sweater pattern... maybe I'll try to improvise?

Last but not least:
a kitty picture to brighten up your day :)