Ah, yes, there was a little more to show you from Berlin. The yarn!

For the train ride to Berlin, I brought my Morehouse Merino shawl project. Casting on 250 stitches on a train with no stitch markers was a pain, but after that it was just knit, knit, knit, round and around and around. And since I've learned to knit and read at the same time, I could even plan a few sight-seeing trips for us. With all the excitement in Berlin, I didn't get any more knitting done on the shawl after the train ride though. Standing next to this woman at the Potsdamer Platz U-Bahn was as close as I got to knitting for the rest of the trip.

look, hubby's pretending I'm taking a picture of him!

I did make it to a few yarn stores though. First was La Laine by Savignyplatz.

What a lovely little neighborhood and a sweet yarn store. All the Lana Grossa yarn you'd ever need is here, along with some GGH, Anny Blatt (angora, yuuum!), and stocks of sock yarn like only the Germans can do. I liked this store so much, I went back before we caught the train to get more yarn!

For contrast, let me show you a little knitting/sewings shop we came across while looking for an ATM in the U-Bahn shopping area at Alexanderplatz. It was called Knopfloch ("buttonhole") and was full of lots of primary-colored, acrylic-y yarn and the smell of grandma. This is how the majority of knitting shops and department store knitting sections are here in Germany. Knitting is still pretty much an Oma activity here, so specialty yarn stores like we have in the states are really the exception. And, judging from the few I've seen, the specialty yarn shops tend to specialize in something else as well. La Laine (and the Wollkorb that I visited in Munich last year) both sold boutique-style clothes in addition to yarn. The ones at La Laine were knitted items with really impressive colorwork (see the suits in the window? they're knitted!).

A couple of days later, we made it out to Kreuzberg - hubby got a Döner and then I visited Fadeninsel. What a great yarn store! They had an incredible selection of GGH yarns - you know the ones you've only seen in online stores and the Rebecca magazine. They also had a mountain of Naturwolle (swoon!) and some lovely hanks of lambswool from which they'd made really cool chunky scarves - four strands of heavy worsted weight lambswool in bright coordinating colors knit together in fisherman's rib (a very popular stitch in Germany). By the way, big scarves are SO in here. I didn't see one poncho or capelet in Berlin, but every other woman practically had a giant wide scarf with tassles wrapped around her neck. (Why didn't I bring my clapotis?!)

The other thing that Fadeninsel specializes in and that made it so cool is socks. They had every kind of sock for sale: handknit socks, machine made socks, hiking socks, tights and loads of crazy striped knee socks. They all looked so fun that I had to get a pair.

for some reason, I was drawn to these same colors in both shops

We had way too much fun visiting my brother-in-law to see the other shops here (like Wollkontor and Loops), and I was way too sensible to buy very much. My Berlin knitting booty was limited to a few balls of Lana Grossa Mix-Up for a scarf, one ball Meilenweit Mega Boots Stretch sock yarn (when in Rome, right?), both from La Laine, and striped knee socks and leather soles for sock/slippers from Fadeninsel. I'm allowed a few knitty souvenirs, right?