Shopping Around

Like every dedicated knitter, any trip is a good excuse reason to explore and sample the local yarns. I did some research beforehand and was armed with a few shops from the Munich Stitch & Bitch. Germany is really the place to go if you're after sock yarns, well, any yarns. The selection is superb, the knitters are very knowledgeable and helpful. I think that Germany's strong culture of hand-crafts means that there are still lots of people who sew, embroider, knit and crochet.

Munich

Wolle Rödel
Rosental 9
80331 München

Just off the Viktualienmarkt is the Wolle Rödel. It is a great shop with a large selection of yarns. I spent most of my time with the sock wool. They stock, Regia, Opal and their own brand. The have an extensive selection of novelty yarns, eyelash, fur, glittery stuff and the type of yarn that you knit as a carry-along (shudder, the amount of fun fur stocked was more than a bit frightening!). There's also a good range of standard yarns, DK, arans, and chunky with a much smaller selection of 4 ply.

The shop is fairly large with one side devoted to knitting and a second side carrying crochet cottons, embroidered goods (linens and for the holiday, tapestry stockings).

The window displayed had the standard yarns on one side.

and the novelty on the other.

Ludwig Beck is just off the Marienplatz. It's a big department store. To find the haberdashery shop, do not go inside the main department store. If you go in there, you can walk around for hours and you will not find yarn or any signs telling you where to go to find yarn. You must walk over to Altenhofstr.

Look for this sign from the street.

See the button? this is the haberdashery. It's accessible from the street not from inside the store. On the first in Munich, I managed to find the Beck. I looked everywhere but did not find the yarn department. I was a little disappointed, convinced that Germany would be the 'mecca' for yarn seekers. Finally, on the day before we left, on a stroll we managed to walk around the Beck and found it. Pity that it was too late and the shop was closed ;-(.

I did see yarn though and it would had been fun to explore a bit more.

Their holiday display was really pretty and so tempting.

Not just yarns, but sewing things too.

In case you were wondering who or what is Ludwig Beck?

Augsburg

We also had a daytrip to visit Augsburg. Augsburg is just a quick (45 minute)ride on the ICE train outside of Munich. We walked through the Christmas market and into the shopping district. On Annastr., something caught my eye. I saw ladies with the distinctive red 'Wolle Rödel' shopping bags. Minutes later, we encountered this... and it was opened too.

It carried the same stock as the other Wolle Rödel

Wolle Rödel
Annastr 2
Augsburg

and I did manage to buy a few things.

So what did I bring home for myself? All sock yarns... in fairly boring shades (because I like boring colours). I think that I'm going through a marl phase since I've just noticed that most of these yarns are marled.

Anyway, if you're going to Germany, check out Wolle Rödel site for shops.

Ready-Made

Of course, there is so much inspiration.

Traditional socks for children,

men,

and women.

The socks were not cheap, but not expensive either given the hand finishing that went into some of them. The prices ranges from 15 euros - 37 euros. The items here were either a wool blend (90% wool/10% polyamide) or cotton.

The hand finshed jumpers in this shop were pretty amazing. While they may or may not be to your taste, the quality of the embroidery and stitches was apparent even to my untutored eyes.

Doesn't this one look a bit like the Poetry Sweaters?

Anyway, who could not like felted clogs to keep the toes warm in the winter.

Now that I'm back, I wished that I noted down the shop names and addresses. They weren't knitting shops so, I didn't immediately document them. I always document the knitting shops just in case someone I know is going somewhere that I've been, if only so that I don't have to rattle my brain to try and remember where it was I saw ...

Posted by atu at December 29, 2006 07:30 PM | TrackBack