OOPS! and no OOPSIES from NORO.

Well, do I feel just as silly as Elvis looks here.

Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if I weren't always saying that I am one of the world's worst counters...when it comes to large numbers of stitches. But you would think that I should be able to count to 3 - as in the 3rd Tuesday of the month, which is when the Kingston Knitting Circle always meets at Chapters in their Community room.

So yes, thanks to Kathy for pointing out that the 3rd Tues. of this month is JULY 15th at Chapters 7-9pm (not July 22nd as I put in the newsletter).
Hope to see you there!

I've been meeting over the past few weeks with sales reps from our different suppliers for the fall lines. (A daunting but wonderful task.) When speaking with the woman who sells us our NORO Yarns, she was saying that in response to some of the comments that the company had been getting re the uneven thickness of some of their yarns and the bits of "stuff" that are sometimes found in the fibres, NORO published a wonderful explanation of how their yarns are made, which goes a long way to reassure us, the consumers, that these slight "imperfections" are in fact positive aspects of what makes NORO Yarns so special. Here are a few excerpts taken from the back cover of the new NORO Magazine Number 24:

-About the raw material: NORO Yarn has always been particular in selecting raw materials from nature...Impurities in the raw wool are carefully removed by hand, without the use of chemicals or machines. This process prevents damage to the fibre, though it makes it impossible to remove impurities as completely as chemicals and machines do.

-Making of the NORO Yarns: The basic principle for the manufacturing of NORO Yarn is "Spin yarn by hand," use machinery only for what cannot be done by hand. This hand-spun yarn is made from finely dyed wool, lined faithfully according to colour and weight, carefully maintaining the slow spinning speed by our craftspersons. Since the human hand is used in the spinning process, the natural luster and texture are obtained without considerably impairing the wool fibre. Lining up the yarn by hand results in irregular arrangement of wool, thereby giving the yarn more bulk...Because it is a handmade yarn...there are areas that are thick and areas that are thin. There are areas where the strand is tight and where the strand is loose, so please knit gently and discover the joy of knitting NORO Yarns.

I was very interested to read these details about one of my favourite yarn companies. First of all, it obviously surprised me that their yarns were spun by hand but more importantly, I had always thought that , like "space dying" in general which has brought us so many new looks in yarn from socks to coats, NORO used the same technology to create the glorious colour repeats in their yarns. Well knock me over, the "computerization" of the dying process, which seems so much a part of our knitting world, is nowhere in sight with NORO. The workers actually arrange the different repeating colours by hand. However they do it, it works great!