A Knitter's Guide to Hamburg (Part 2)

Following my trip to Hamburg, this is a post giving a few details about my adventures finding and shopping in 'Hamburger Wollfabrik' - a yarn warehouse, full of cones of yarn in about every shade imaginable! 

 

Wollfabrik is a fairly large warehouse that stocks yarn in a relatively wide range of yarn types, particularly noted; cotton, acylic mixes, merino blends, cashmere and silk combinations with wool. The selection available is really quite inspiring, and for a budding designer it's just perfect to be able to find this kind of diversity of choice (and the prices are very good too).  The yarn is stocked as single-ply and then you have the option to choose what thickness and weight you would like to purchase it in.  On the shelves there are little cards giving you an approximation of what ply you will need to needle size, which works as a rough guide: 

My german is not great, but I think we can assume fädig means ply - as you can see here the german words are not that dissimilar to the english for yarn types, so you can have a pretty good guess.  There were also two Sales Assistants available at the time that I went in that spoke good english, which inevitably helps!  When you have chosen your yarn, weight, and number of plys, they will take the order and go round with a shopping trolley (surely the only way to buy yarn), and load it up onto their machinery to wind it onto cones for you.

The yarn that you end up with is not twisted together in the same way it would normally be when you purchase it in balls, but rather you hold the plys together as you knit.  I haven't experimented with that before, so I'll have to update when I see how it goes...

Whilst you wait for your yarn to be processed, you can help yourself to free coffee, there is a customer toilet, and you can continue to wander around looking and touching yarn ;)

I think it is definitely worth a visit, and would recommend it to anyone going to Hamburg.  The only thing is that it is a little out of the way, although very possible on the bus, it is a little disorientating as it is off a major road in a fairly industrial area.  So, what follows is a detailed picture map of my pedestrian route after I got off the bus, to act as a guide for anyone who finds themselves in a similar position!  

I took the 120 Bus from outside the Hauptbahnhof.  To find the bus depot you need to come out of the main exit for the Hauptbahnhof and turn right, walking to the furthest edge of the Hauptbahnhof.  Then, still facing away from the station, cross the road and, you will see, slightly bearing to the right, the buses pulling in.

Get off the bus at Billhorner Rohrendamm (there is an electronic monitor announcing the stops on the bus).  When you get off the bus you will see a pedestrial subway, which you need to go down to.

Turn left and walk to the second steps on the left-hand side, and use these to exit the subway.  

 

 Then you walk straight ahead going over two zebra crossings.  

Keep going straight until you find a little pedestrian path on the right-hand side.

Take this to get onto Brandshofer Deich (road).

Walk a bit further down this street and if you look up and to the left you will see a metal sign saying 'Hamburger Wollfabrik' above the building.  In this photo, it is the building you can see it at the top of the tree (the terracotta coloured building)... you are almost there...

Just a little bit further now and you will see the shop sign on the left-hand side for Hamburger Wollfabrik - you have arrived :)

 

And just for fun, here is a picture of me looking rather smug with my shopping bag at the bus stop!!