Dear yarnbirds,
The distinctive colors, the long self striping effect, the distinctive texture and ply - you can often recognize a garment made with Noro yarn from across a room. Talk to a Noro fan and you find they are deeply committed to the fiber created by the late Eisaku Noro. If you are a Noro fan, or you want to know what all the fuss is about, join us for a yarn tasting on January 28th. Until that time, check out a little about the Noro philosophy.
The Noro philosophy is centered around creating a yarn and fiber that reflects the beauty found in nature
Eisaku Noro, founder of Noro Yarns, explains, "From ancient times, Japanese have accepted, enjoyed and been charmed by the ununiformity, unevenness and occasionally the coarseness of nature. It may be the base of us, and not only the basic philosophy for Noro yarns."
Not only are the colors reflective of those found in nature, Noro minimizes the machine handling to preserve the original qualities of the fibers. Only one roller is used on the carding machine instead of the usual three, plus it uses a shorter bed, and gently hand feeds fiber into the carder. The yarns receive less twist in the spinning process, which creates the variances in thickness along the length of the yarn.
As Noro observes, "If we make wool yarn, we use various lengths and thicknesses of wool fiber: We want to reproduce the sheep itself in our yarn." Indeed, this willingness to embrace the imperfections and variations is a hallmark of Noro yarns.
But it isn’t only the appearance of the yarn that has to reflect nature, Noro purposely tries to avoid damage to the environment by, “Keeping processing to a minimum and eschewing the use of harsh chemical treatments… Friction created by agitation and heat during processing can weaken natural fibers; by shortening this process, Noro reduces the damage done to fibers and to the environment.”
Find out more about Noro
here, and by joining us on the 28th. Hope to see you there!
