In da Club IV: Rohrspatz & Wollmeise

We at Strickmich! Club liked having Claudia Hoell-Wellmann’s Rohrspatz & Wollmeise yarns so much in 2014, we just could not resist and invited her to join in 2015 as well! Her yarns are unmatched in the hand-dyeing world: Deep, shiny colors and unusual combinations that no one but Claudia could think of. Like “Peggy“: Dark red, yellow, pink, orange and green. “My Peggy is a sweet girl, isn’t she?” Claudia says. Her semisolid colors are also fascinating and new every time: “Küken” (“Baby chick”) is a different orange than “Gänsefüsschen” (“Little Goose Feet”), and aluminum certainly is a different blueish gray than iron. Only someone with a very special eye and sense of color could see that and translate it to the dyeing pot. Someone like Claudia. Each skein must match her very high standards: Perfect color, no knots, always a little more than the promised 150 grams. If it doesn’t, it will end up in a “Nobody’s Perfect” box and be sold at Wollmeise’s spring or fall sale – to very enthusiastic knitters. Every batch will be inspected under a very bright lamp, wound into a signature tight skein and be put on its journey to knitters around the globe. The great quality of the yarn bases (developed by Claudia in cooperation with her spinneries), the beautiful colors, her friendly and professional team – we at Strickmich! Club couldn’t be happier to have Rohrspatz & Wollmeise yarns back in 2015.

Rohrspatz & Wollmeise have had a very exciting year so far: They added a new yarn base with cashmere called “Blend” to their selection, as well as special wool detergent with that delicious Wollmeise scent – just when it was time to move the shop to a bigger location, because the huge number of colors and yarn qualities had simply outgrown the old shop. Also, the little space where caring hands prepared the yarn for shipping and the storage space had become too small, so everyone had to move during summer. The new home of the Wollmeise operation (except for the dyeing studio) is a nice yellow building in the middle of Pfaffenhofen in Bavaria. Moving was a huge effort, but definitely worth it:

The new shop features four cozy sofas, so you can easily plan to spend half a day there – shop a little yarn, chat and knit a little, browse the shelves again, find something beautiful, knit a little…
Claudia herself also loves to knit when she is at her shop. However, at home she has a different ritual for winding down: “I love ironing on a Sunday afternoon with my shiny new ironing board! I turn on the TV and watch something stupid while I iron the sheets. There’s no better way to relax!” After that, she is ready to start dyeing again on Monday morning, creating new exciting color ways for the world of knitters. Her favorite color at the moment? “Glückstag (‘Lucky Day’)! It just makes me happy to look at it: a combination of Mamba-Samba-yellow-green and Am kalten Polar-Purple-Teal.”

We at Strickmich! Club consider ourselves lucky to have such an unusually talented dyer contributing a very special yarn in 2015 – just as pretty as in 2014, but different. Be prepared for a surprise!