After 48 years, Angela Schumacher is handing over her shop on Penzberg's Rathausplatz

Created: 04/02/2022, 18:00

By: Franziska Seliger

Color frenzy: Angela Schumacher surrounded by her wool.

After 48 years, she will close her shop at the end of April.

Her successor will take over at the beginning of July.

But privately she wants to continue embroidering the traditional Werdenfels Gobelin suspenders.

© blissful

For almost 50 years, Angela Schumacher ran her wool and handicraft shop on Penzberg's Rathausplatz.

The 72-year-old will retire at the end of April.

But she doesn't want to stop with the manual work.

Penzberg – Ingeborg Liszi is sitting on a chair in the middle of the store and is at a loss.

Who should she go to from May if she doesn't know what to do with one of her knitting projects?

asks the 80-year-old.

For more than 30 years she came to Angela Schumacher in her shop - of course to buy wool, yarn or knitting needles.

But also because Schumacher always knows what to do if there is a problem with the manual work.

"She always advised me so nicely and taught me so much," remembers the Penzberg native.

"I learned from her how to knit jackets." And Liszi quietly adds: "I'm very sad that she's giving up.

I will miss her very much.”

Opened in August 1978

Schumacher opened her shop in August 1978.

For 48 years, she stood in the shop six days a week, she recalls.

It's been years since your last vacation.

And anyway: "I'm 72 years old." There just has to be an end.

The businesswoman says she's been looking for a successor for around six years and now she's finally found one.

The fact that she opened a shop for wool and handicrafts on Rathausplatz almost half a century ago was a result of her family situation at the time.

Schumacher actually wanted to study history and German, but then she got pregnant.

Her marriage failed and because, as a single mother, she didn't want to leave her two small children alone, she opened the shop - because she could simply take the children here.

Her grandmother taught her to knit and crochet

First she tried a combination of yarn store and bookstore.

"But doing both together was too labor-intensive," she recalls.

So Schumacher, who learned to knit and crochet from her grandmother, concentrated on wool and needlework.

On average, 30 to 50 customers come to her every day - to choose wool for their next knitting or crochet work, but also because the shop has almost everything you need for handwork: yarns and fabrics, buttons, or needles.

Suspenders are a specialty of Schumacher.

Not just any suspenders, but the traditional Werdenfelser tapestry suspenders that you wear with lederhosen.

She says it takes her around two hundred hours to embroider a pair of suspenders by hand.

This costs the client about 800 euros.

Over the years, she has counted countless members of traditional costume clubs from the region among her customers, who then wear these artistic accessories at regional festivals, among other things.

But men don't just come to her for suspenders, she says.

"2013 was the big year for hats," she recalls.

At that time, young men regularly sat in her shop and let her show them how to crochet hats.

Because Schumacher also held handicraft courses;

about how to crochet traditional stockings or embroider braces.

Over the decades, she reflects, she must have sold "a few tons of wool."

Her customers have not only come from Penzberg for a long time, but from all over the Oberland.

"I have a large group of customers." Still - even if it has shrunk due to the restrictions in the pandemic and many loyal regular customers have died in the meantime,

Finally time for museums and exhibitions

After almost 50 years in her shop, Schumacher is now looking forward to her retirement.

She thinks she will finally have time again to visit museums or exhibitions.

Grandma will soon see her two grandchildren in Penzberg more often.

But she still wants to embroider suspenders.

Her successor doesn't want to do that.

The question remains as to what happens to Luna, the old cat that Schumacher took in 15 years ago after her owners simply moved away without her.

The cat has lived in the shop for all these years – much to the delight of many customers.

A new phase of life will now also begin for the house tiger, because: “Luna is coming home with me.

I won't leave them behind."

Before Angela Schumacher hands over her shop, she will sell leftover packages of her goods at a discount from Monday, April 4th to Saturday, April 30th;

as well as their fabrics.

The shop is open in April from Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.