Yarn shops Bern

Just a quick overview of the yarn shops in Bern. All photos are taken from the respective shop's website because I again forgot to take pictures. I have linked to all the websites and they have many more beautiful photos to share.

Maglia Mania

This shop has limited hours but is well worth the trip. The yarn shop is in the basement of the building and in a doorway right next to the bank entrance you will find your typical European buzzer with their name above it. Just press it and then will buzz open the door for you. They sell only their own hand dyed yarn and they try to source as many of the fibers from Switzerland as they can. There is Swiss mountain silk in most of the bases.

The owner was fantastically friendly even replying to an email (in English) in advance when I was unsure of the directions to get to her shop. The shop was right next to my hotel but maybe 20 minutes walking from the historic town center. You could take the number 12 bus all the way there too, or it is just a walk up the hill from the train station. I think that it is well worth the visit.

Natura Handarbeiten AG

Sadly there is no real website for this store and no pictures. You can go to Goggle street view and just make out the first part of the sign behind one of the medieval statue fountains on the main street. The shop was small but packed neatly with German, French, and Swiss yarn. The shop assistant spoke very good English and was very helpful. Since this shop is in the center of the city there is no reason to miss it.

Near the train station there are two different stores that have not made it onto Knit Map yet. I learn about them from the Fresh Stitches blog and I include a link to each of the post below. (Go look, she remembered to take pictures!)

Loeb

Another blog post about Loeb's yarn from Fresh Stitches

Every European country I have visited has a yarn section in their huge multi-story department stores. There might be more than one, but the one I found was Loeb. Like many department stores it has multiple buildings. The one with the yarn on the 5th floor was just across the street from the end of the glass roofed bus hub.

The selection was amazing. I have seen many yarn shops with less selection. The sock yarn selection alone is worth the trouble of visiting. These German speaking countries know their yarn!

There was also other craft supplies here too, they even had seed beads (a thing that is very hard to find in Spain for some reason).

Here again, speaking English was not a problem.

Bastelzentrum

Other blog post from Fresh Stitches

Now this store had the biggest selection yet! If you visit here you might want to either know what you are looking for or that you have at least an hour to browse. You have to take an escalator from the main street to get down to the entrance. That "first floor" is what holds aisles and aisles of yarn, buttons, sewing supplies, (be still my hard) roving and felting supplies. Look for the stairs towards the back because if you, like me, are from a craft store deprived city the lower floor has everything your crafty heart could possibly desire. They had more craft supplies than most American big-box stores do.

Yarn stores in Montpellier

Here is a post solely about the yarn shops to be found in Montpellier. I have no idea how useful this will be for others, but I myself, appreciate when others do posts about stores they see when they travel.  I find that in my travels going to yarn shops can really take you off the tourist track and give you a sense of what life is really like there. You will also be able to visit neighborhoods better and see more of the city if you search out your local yarn shop. I am going to try in the future to make more posts about yarn stores I visit while traveling. Also I know, I do not have a post about yarn/wool stores in Madrid. If you have questions in that area, please feel free to email me or leave a comment below. 

Knitting in museums

So we know that Montpellier is knitting friendly for three reasons:

1.) No one looked twice while I was knitting away in the park

2.) There are little signs of knitting everywhere (I even saw a yarn bombed bike)

3.) There are five yarn shops in just the center!

Knitting everywhere!

Before we get into the descriptions of the shops one quick note: Apparently a lot of shops in Montpellier are closed on Mondays (and maybe Sundays too, it's the case here in Spain). Also it seems that some of the stores close for a long lunch break (also like in Spain). I have included the hours that I found on their websites, but it is good to plan in advance and be aware of local operating times.

All of the yarn stores had very little overlap of brands/poducts that I could see, so they might all be worth the visit.

First up we have my favorite.

LaMercerie

23 Rue des Étuves

Monday from 10h to 19h and Tuesday to Saturday from 9:30 am to 19h (non stop)

 This shop had everything that you would expect in a craft store in the US! There was a good selection of: buttons, beads, fabric, sewing notions, knitting notions, yarn, and even a small section with felting supplies! The yarn selection was impressive with a selection of fibers and of well known brands. There was also more then one brand of French yarn including a good selection from Bergere de France. There is even more yarn than on display in the shelves at the back of the store, so you might want to ask for something if you can not find it. In my case I am addicted to self stripping sock yarn I couldn't find any and was not sure how to ask. I am currently studying French but I am a beginner, so I was relived when a friendly saleswoman who spoke English well asked me if I needed any help.

Let's be honest here (and if you have read this far you are a crafter/knitter too so you might know how I feel) the presence of just this shop makes the potential move more exciting. There is no one shop (that I know of, please tell me if there is) in Madrid that such a selection of all of these materials under one roof.

Phildar

5 Grand Rue Jean Moulin

10:00-19:00 Mon-Sat

 The store sells mostly clothes, but there is a yarn section (only selling Phildar yarn/magazines, of course) at the back. The yarn that I saw had more acrylic and cotton than I would like. There was not an atmosphere conducive to browsing so I did not look at everything.

 Avant Aprés
29 Rue Foch
10:00-19:00 Tues-Sat

This s a very upscale yarn and fabric shop. All open space and chrome. Here is where you would go to get your high end international yarns (non-US) such as Rowan, Noro, Debbie Bliss etc.

Anne Ouvrages
28 Rue Paul Brousse
Tues-Fri 9:30-19:00
Sat 9:30-12:30 and 14:00-19:00

I wasn't going to drag my husband to any more yarn stores, but then a local convinced me to try to go one more. She warned me that some people felt that the sales people are less welcoming here. However, she always feels welcome and I did too. When I came in with my camera holding husband (it was so obvious that we were tourists) they greeted me and when they had time they came over to ask if I needed any help ("I'm just looking" is one the phrases I know in French) and they gave me a box to put yarn into. It was a great sales technique as I had yet to pick any yarn. They (there were two saleswoman) also pointed out the other yarn section to me. They do not speak English here, but I was able to understand what they said by context and my limited French.

This store had a good selection that included a lot of yarns from both Amy Blatt and Bouton d'Or which are both French brands. This is also the store that has by far the most mohair/cashmere yarns (just a little warning for those of you unfortunate enough to be allergic to goat hair like I am). This store also included fabric and sewing notions. (Mercerie in both Spanish and French mean fabric/sewing/yarn shop.)

I am told that there is also a fifth yarn store that sells mostly Katia (a Spanish brand). "Coccinelle" which is located at the bottom of Rue Saint Guilhem, but I did not get a chance to visit it.

Please a comment if you have anything to add to my quick summary.

Memorial blanket

So a lot of you might have realized that this blog does not outwardly appear to have a cohesive subject. There is crafting, and travel, and notes about living in Spain. In the past I have struggled with that fact that there is no main theme to the blog, but that fact is, there is a main theme: my public journal of my life.  I have started tagging the blog with different key words so that those of you that do not care about crafting can read about my travels and vice-versa, and I will continue to go back and tag the old posts to make reading on a theme easier. If you wish to, please use the tags I have put in the right hand side bar to go to the subjects that interest you. The fact of the matter is that I miss my blog and I am going to start posting more regularly, and it is going to be a true mash up of my life, enjoy.

So back to today's post. As many of you might be aware I recently lost one of my best friends. It has been 5 months now, and it is still really hard to get through a day sometimes. My grief has been profound and it could be, that being so lonely here in Madrid has not helped. Before you feel too sorry for me, know that lot of my solitary feeling is self-inflicted because I know that we are looking to move countries again soon. So, without realizing it, for a while I channeled my grief into something constructive. Something that would be pretty and give warmth and comfort to my family.

I chose to knit the Mystery blanket by Elizabeth Zimmerman out of The Knitter's Almanac. I have always wanted to do this blanket because I love kitchener stitch. The reason that this blanket is called a "mystery" is that it is really hard to see in which direction that it is knit.

This blanket was born when I realized that I a lot of my worsted weight stash was in autumn colors and that I might have enough for a decent sized blanket. The blanket is very heavy and a great stash buster (uses a lot of yarn). It is knitted worsted weight/Aran held double on size 8mm. The finished size is about 4.5-5.5' or 1.5 by 2 meters. I knit the pattern as is except for the boarder which I knit in the round for fear of running out of wool.

I do not have all of the information on which types of wool I used. Some of them were close-outs and some of them un-marked Spanish wool.

Sorry about the photos in my kitchen, it is the best place to get natural light. 

If I was to knit this again I would have added extra increases at the corners by the edge. I added to either side of the corner stitch every-other-row but it was not enough, the corners have a tendency to flip up and it was only with firm blocking that they give the appearance of laying flat. I would also have made the increase yarn overs because they are stretchier. 

Christmas markets - Madrid

On Saturday my husband and I decided to brave the holiday crowds downtown and see the Christmas markets. We went to five and this is the first time I have done this kind of outing in Madrid. My first Christmas here in Spain I went to THE (the one in front of the Cathedral) Christmas market in Barcelona. Last year I kind of glanced at a few while friends and family were visiting, but I did not really go through and have a good look.

My conclusion is only by putting together all five of the markets I saw yesterday in Madrid do you get the equal of just the one in Barcelona. Still it was a fun day. For example: the first thing we saw when we came out of the metro was this:

Callao

It was apparently a "Knitting Party" event put on by We Are Knitters that had just ended. It is very nice to see more and more of these types of events happening in Spain (where the knitting revolution is just now exploding). The very first thing I saw was the yarn. Apparently I have a homing beacon for it and was drawn to it almost immediately.

Then, turning around I snapped a photo of the Callao xmas tree in daylight.

Callao

Our first Christmas market was the one in Plaza Santa Domingo. It was so underwhelming we did not even snap photos of it. Basically it sold: leather goods, jewelry, watches, scarves, and those animal head hats that are so popular now. It is definitely more magical to shop there at night when the lights are on.

The second market was in a building across from the Convent de las Descalzas Reales. Various craft stalls were set up around the perimeter a central space.

Next we walked to Plaza Mayor to see it's Christmas market. This is definitely the largest one, and where I would go to get figures for a Belén (Navtivity scene) if I were setting one up. As there are lots of little stalls selling miniatures of various types and sizes. It is also a place to get those New Year's glasses, hats of any size and shape, and various other Christmas decorations.

Add caption

Plaza Mayor

Oh, and there is a beautiful carousel.

Plaza Mayor

Plaza Mayor

Outside an entrance to Plaza Mayor

Outside an entrance to Plaza Mayor

Heading down Calle Atocha from Plaza Mayor you can come to one of the prettiest Christmas Markets in Madrid.

Iglesia de la Santa Cruz

 The Market in Plaza Jacinto Benavente. A small prettily decorated market with high end gifts. For some reason it reminds me of what a German xmas market would be like. I have never seen a German xmas market, but this is how I would imagine one. You can go through tall arched doorways of "stone" and inside under a tent of xmas lights there are little cottages bedecked with greenery and snowy scenes on top.

Plaza Jacinto Benavente

Plaza Jacinto Benavente

Plaza Jacinto Benavente

Plaza Jacinto Benavente

Plaza Jacinto Benavente

 On our way back to catch the metro we past by the World Famous (with it's claim to being the oldest restaurant in the world) Restaurante de Sobrino de Botín. There is always a little 3 story miniature of the restaurant in the window and this time the miniature was decorated for Christmas. (Sorry, only the photo of the first level come out).

In the window of Sobrino de Botín

 The setting sun on the decorative roof of the Marcado de San Miguel.

Marcado de San Miguel

The Royal palace also glowed the setting sun.

Palacio Real

Our last market was the Marcado Dulce (sweet market)in the Plaza de Ópera. We were apparently too tired to get a picture but it was a pretty little market, but, as you may have guessed, centered on sweets and baked goods.

campaña por la lana

The Campaign for Wool was begun by the Prince of Wales and has spread to many cities, Madrid being one of them. 

I have mixed feelings about the Campaign here in Madrid and you will shortly see why. (Although the rumors that they used acrylic yarn last year are not true.)

First lets watch the video from last year, the English version, and you can see what a great and spectacular show that was put on last year, 2012.

Also here is a link to my bi-lingual post about last year's Campaign.

This years's Campaign was smaller, which I suppose was to be expected. The economy in Spain is not good, and the government seems to be making it worse. There was only 2 educational/showcase spots for the Campaign this year. 

But there were sheep in the sidewalk of Serrano in Madrid's most elite shopping district.

Doing what sheep do.

Next to the sheep was an English garden complete with knitted accents.

There were a couple of informative posters here and there. I was very surprised and pleased to see this one detailed 5 different breeds of Spanish sheep. You rarely see something this educational about wool here. However, I think that they must be the 5 most famous breeds of sheep in the country because there is actually at least 52 Spanish breeds. But I suppose that the point of the Campaign is to reach the average person and promote the usefulness of wool, not to reach and educate crafters of wool. (Click to enlarge.)

This next sign was not illustrated (or checked over) by any one that has ever really worked with wool. Still I suppose that the educational spirt was there. (Click to enlarge and see the pictures.)

There were also little informative signs in the garden.

The stroke of genius this year was that someone had the idea to hire male models to walk the sheep around and answer questions while being dressed in wool like a chic shepherd. Last year there were a lot of female models wearing the latest in wool (and little of it). This year's models resemblance to the shepherds of the past combined with the chic "tweed" look of today was perfect. (No they did not know much about wool, but they were super helpful.) 

Either more stores participated this year or the route between the two educational spots was well lined, because almost every store you walked by was participating.

Some of the uses of the wool in the displays were...interesting, but maybe that's the fashion world for you.

The great thing about coming out to this shopping district (it is not someplace that I do regularly) was seeing that a lot of the well to do people were wearing a lot of wool already. The tweed look is very in right now, it is avery wool friendly look and I love it.

The store with this type of sign were not selling yarn, much to my disappointment, but the displays were super cute.

The second educational spot, a pop up store, located off of Calle Jorge Juan definitely got high points for presentation.

There were goodies and information packets. Here is where I have mixed feelings about the campaign. I love wool, I love to teach others about wool and the crafts associated to it. I know that for the general public too much information can be a bad thing...

but look at those "wool" samples on the table. They are in cute little boxes with a baby on them. There was NO information on them, save the advertiser's: Woolmark. No fun facts, no information indicating what the fiber is, no reasons for the sample in the first place. Also...it was silk (I did a burn test on both). OK silk is a natural fiber, but that is not the point, is it? Also this type of silk is not a renewable resource, the worm dies in the process. Silk does not promote the use of wool. Also Silk is generally more expensive than wool, why give it out as a sample indicating (by it's presence in the Campaign, not information on the box) it as wool?

There were two kinds of samples and the other was a very soft merino wool (not that you could tell from the boxes). The samples of wool were a nice touch.

But something to make you spinners cringe... the wool samples were cut into lengths. Shudder.

There was an area where people could learn how to knit, and they were knitting with wool. A very good idea. More knitters equals more demand for higher grade wool, and maybe down the road, the demand for breed conservation and the conservation of colored fleeces.

This little girl is an early convert and was singing "Paseo de la lana!" (Avenue of wool is a rough translation) over and over as she walked behind us to the pop-up store.

Do you have mixed feelings about this campaign for wool as well? Or is a little education (even if some of it is misrepresented) better than nothing?