Knitter's Utopia

Leaving Köln on Friday, I arrived in Gießen in the morning and in the afternoon left again, heading south to Munich. I didn't do much sightseeing as I arrived late and headed out early on Saturday.

This looks like a typical small Bavarian town.

Nice station...



with a nice town square...



that has a market on Saturday mornings.





But I wasn't here to buy fruit and vegetables.

I definitely was here for fiber...

but not the edible kind.



The shocking thing is...this is their local yarn store for some lucky, lucky knitters. When the shop is open, knitters come in, chat, drink coffee, etc.







I was able to do that only after about an hour (OK, maybe longer) of going around the room, feeling up all the yarn. When I was asked if I needed help, I was close to blurting out, "I'll take ten of everything...in every color." It's one thing to see the colors over the internet or to see the colors of the one or two precious skeins you may have been lucky enough to buy over the internet. But to see it all jumbled together in one place!

While there, I met Claudia, who owns Wollmeise, and Sheri, who owns the Loopy Ewe in St. Louis, MO.

They are both camera shy - with their backs to the camera, Claudia is on the left and Sheri on the right.


I also met Arlene - as in Arlene's World of Lace. You should see the samples of her lace knitting patterns in person...I think I've queued every single one of her patterns that I found on Ravelry.

She is also extremely camera shy - and was standing to the right of Claudia - I promised not to take her photo.

If you're ever lucky enough to get there, don't leave without using the bathroom. It is Pepto Bismol pink and there are permanent markers provided so that you can write on the walls.





This is what one gets when they bring their spouse along.


Obviously, some knitters do not believe that ignorance is bliss, especially regarding spouses and yarn purchases.

Did you know that the Hermitage's collections are so vast that they can only show about 5% of their collections at a time?

It's the same with my purchases.

This is a small representation of the my entire collection.



These are from the "Nobody is Perfect" collection. Claudia calls them this as they've got one knot in the skein. I call it a bargain.

L to R - Luscious purple laceweight, green Twin, black/brown/red 100% merino, and Twin Wild Thing in the color "Amazonas."

Mission accomplished.

Now, to get it all home...