One of our favorite yarns in the shop is our collection of Noro.  Noro is made in Japan and is known world-wide for its striking colors.  We thought you might be interested in learning more about the production of Noro yarns and the process that goes into designing the signature stripes. Eisaku Noro contemplated going to art school to become a painter, but instead he turned his amazing eye for color to yarns for both hand and machine knitting.  Silk Road Textiles carries Kureyon, Silk Garden, Taiyo, Koromo, Kibou, Shiraito, Silk Garden Sock, and Taiyo Sock from the hand-knitting line. Noro is committed to leaving as much of the production hand-done as feasible.  This is part of what makes Noro yarns so distinctive.  The thick and thin effect is due to the hand picking of the fibers, the variation in stripe length is because no two people lay out the fiber in exactly the same way, and the knots that you sometimes find are because these prep techniques lend themselves better to shorter spinning runs. If you want to learn more, there is an interesting video (about 6 minutes long) produced by an English-speaking channel in Japan about Noro yarns.  There is also an amazing book excerpt in PDF format available here.  It details where all the fibers are sourced, what the special properties of each are, and it includes lots of pictures of the entire process. We have lots of samples made with Noro yarn in the store, and we are pleased to carry Noro pattern books and the new Noro Magazine.  If you need inspiration or just want to see what it possible to be done with these amazing yarns, please stop in and ask us!

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