Having travelled down the country all day by train, an 8 hour train journey, during which I swapped between knitting, reading and gazing out the window, I arrived in Vienna to night scenes and the drizzly end to what had been stunning weather.

However the weather couldn’t stop me and we did another whistlestop whirlwind tour of sights and sounds and sachertorte.  Vienna is big on non-symmetrical symmetry – lots of conversations contain the sentence “this building was going to have a matching one opposite but…” and it’s the most gothic, beroque, overwrought, wedding cake of a city.  It reminded me strongly of Buenos Aires and had a very Irish atmosphere while being very definitely germanic.  I particularly loved the art deco and art neuvo flourishes everywhere, from the famous cupola gracing one of the ‘tube’ stations to little hand paintings on doorways.

Going from a protestant to a catholic country was actually quite startling in a way I hadn’t predicted.  Having grown up with a mix of churches and styles to go from the simple, open almost auster protestant churches to the heady wrought, dripping in gilt (and guilt!), ornateness that is the catholism I was brought up with was amazing.

We visited far too many places and saw too many things to mention, but highlights included Lobmyer glass,  Klosterneuburg Abbey with it’s beautiful enamelled alter screen, St Patricks, The Summer Place and a lovely walk around The Dorotheum (auction house).  The city centre is compact and very easy to get around with lots of ‘hidden’ feeling alleys and side streets – and of course the ubiquitous coffee houses.

I was spoilt by M and her husband (and two very friendly cats) – and lots and lots (and lots of beautiful handmade patchwork quilts).  I was also spoilt by M’s very lovely parents, who welcomed me into their home and made me eat and drink lots of wonderful foodstuffs.

I met a Vienna branch of a knit group, disingenuously in a Starbucks as the only place that stayed open late enough, and had a wonderful time sharing fibre stories.

Of course I visited more yarn shops.  Another ‘high end’ luxury store with skeins on the walls, it’s own range of t-shirts (I particularly liked “knit fast, die warm”) and the cutest sheep project bags, but M beat me to it!

The other was the size of a cupboard (it was crowded with the three of us) but just the most wonderful place.  Another ‘taken on by an avid knitter when the original owner retired’ shop – and almost as full with stock – but only because the space was so small!  Very friendly, very fun and we had a wonderful time.

In both shops there were one or two skeins/balls/hanks on display in each colourway for each yarn type and you took your colour to the counter and told them how much you wanted – at which point assistant would disappear into the back and return with what you wanted.  I kept wanting to hum the theme tune to Mr Benn for some reason.

I bought lots in Vienna, the yarn shops were lovely and though there was very high end expensive imports lots of it was very cheap.  I’ve even let Purlescence have a little squish to see what they think as I’d love to be able to pick up some of  these brands without having to travel Austria!

I got…

2 skeins of Isager Spinni and 3 of Isager 1 (100% alpaca) in a beautiful sort of faded vintage teal colour to make (at some point) Camomille. I also bought 2 skiens of Isager 2 Alpaca in black for a Spectra. I know I can get this here in the UK at Loop, but it was a lot cheaper in Europe.

I then swapped shops (so to speak) and indulged…  First to fall to me was the BC Garn Silkbloom Fino.  The lightest, softest, squidgest puff of nothingness which apparently a lot of Austrians use to make baby blankets.  At 45% mohairsilk and 55% super  soft merino I’m not sure I’d be cranking out baby blankets, though to be fair it wasn’t that expensive. I bought 1 ball in the most lovely chocolate mocha colour (there were loads of colours) for a pair of cabled fingerless mitts

Swiftly followed into the basket by BC Garn’s Jaipur Silk Fino – 300m of pure mulberry silk that I genuinely have no idea what I’m going to do with it, but it shines like it’s lit from within..

then I came across a whole new company (well to me anyway) with the wall of deliciousness that was Lotus Yarns.  Into the basket fell a ball of Miya – a rich purple laceweight that is 70% mink (!), 20% merino and 10% silk.

then a ball of Moon Night – 95% lambswool, 5% cashmere and 600 meters per 50g!  Yeap that’s right – SIX HUNDRED meters!  In a beautiful smoke grey…

then, having become jealous of all the fine laceweights and cobweb weights a brave little skein of DK Cashmere made the dive.  And not just any cashmere, oh no, this was 100% Mongolian cashmere.  I have no idea is this is better, being a bit of a cashmere virgin, but it just happened to match the Isager bought earlier as well so I’m thinking mittens to match the shawl eventually, maybe,..

I also had several close run in’s with mushrooms – more on that in another post.