SpaceMika

This may be committing knitter’s sacrilege, but Noro yarn isn’t perfect. When knitting, it breaks easily and feels itchy in the final product. When weaving, it’s too weak to use as a warp-yarn, and as a weft it requires splicing anywhere knots were tied in the original ball. Although an average ball goes through a beautiful range of saturated colours, it also goes through a whole lot of ucky, mucky greys.

Beautiful green, brilliant blue, and a whole lot of ucky grey

Now, I like grey. I love the richness of charcoal grey, and the ability of silver to set off a whole range of rich colours. I don’t like the muddled, grey-puce-mustard that took up several inches of my last Noro weaving project, I was disappointed my rainbow scarf had a solid block of black, and I was downright confused as to why magenta faded to grey before rebounding up to red. Looking at Noro in the shops, I’m perpetually enchanted and hopeful that a project will turn out as gorgeous as the ball, only to find endless mucky-grey and similarly jarring switches from happy-cheerful to doom-and-gloom colours by the end of the yarn.

One day, I will find a perfect ball of Noro.

I’ve recently had my first experiences working with angora yarns. Although I’m incredibly impressed with Naturally Sensation’s 70% merino, 30% angora 10 ply yarn, I’m substantially less impressed with other brands with a higher percentage of bunny.

Naturally Sensation angora: soft, delicious, and if you look at it sharply, it gazes up with its big bunny-sheep eyes and pleads for a cuddle.

Naturally Sensation is the white yarn in Georgie’s scarf, and in the pair of shawls I made from the leftover yarn. It’s soft, and although it snaps if you give it a good tug, it’s strong enough to use as a warp-yarn without fear.

Louisa Harding’s 70% angora, 25% wool, 5% nylon doesn’t just break or tear, it actually falls apart! Without putting undue tension on the yarn, it snaps all the time. It’d be impossible to weave with it as the warp yarn as it’d constantly break every time you tightened, and knitting is downright frustrating. I’m very cautiously attempting it as a weft yarn, and already it’s broken more time than I can count. I’m learning to not so much pull the yarn as to rest it gently in place.

Louisa Harding angora: soft, delicious, and snaps if you look at it sharply.

Soft & delicious, but in the future I’ll be sticking with no more than 30% bunny in my yarns.

Also, I think I’m allergic to bunnies. I guess it’s a good thing I missed out on meeting them.

I picked up possum-yarn when I was in New Zealand, but didn’t get around to knitting it until recently. I agree with the knitty review to some extent. I didn’t find it split at all, but that might be the amazing (also NZ) Quill-brand needles. It tears incredibly easily if you give it a yank, but doesn’t break while knitting.

I am finding the possum a bit itchier than I’d anticipated (again, departing from the knitty review). All the advertising calls it ecologically responsible fur because in New Zealand, possums are a pest killing all the endangered flightless birds, but at the same time I can’t quite wrap my heart around moral-fur, so that also rubs me a little wrong about the yarn.

The gloves are a simple-knit, just a ribbed tube with a thumb stuck on, but are very warm and comfy. Pattern: co 30 on six 6 needles, k2p2 rib for a while, k2tg x2, knit flat for a few rows, mk2, rejoin in circle, knit a bit more, cast off. Pick up stitches along the thumb hole, kit in a rib in the round for a while, cast off. Done!

The hat is equally simple — co 120 in one colour, knit next row in main colour, k10, p2, k6, p2 rib, decrease by a bit each row (I did k2tog & decs on either side of the k10 blocks until they were down to k4, and on the k6 blocks until they were down to k2), then keep pattern for a while. Alternate colours by 1 row, main colour for 1 row, 5 rows, main colour for 1 row, 1 row, return to main colour and continue on. To decrease at the top, I did some k2togs & decs until all stiches were knits, then k2togs until only 5 stitches remained, cast off, and wove the end in.

The scarf is the only item without any of the possum-wool. I photographed it before, here

All projects are plain weave on a Rigid Heddle loom.

I’ve belatedly realized that Knitting Circles are the perfect tourist guide.  New Zealand has a grand history of knitting, and I intend to poke around local yarn stores for possum-yarn, quill double-points, my share of the wool from the overwhelming number of sheep, and so on. To aid me on this quest, I’ll see just how many reviews I can add to the NZ section of KnitMap.