This is mostly a knitting blog. Sometimes pictures of things I've made, sometimes not. I'm a guy who knits, I usually attend a men's stitch 'n' bitch on Monday nights, and I prefer natural fibres to artificial ones. I have a love-hate relationship with bamboo yarns: I love what they can do and how they look, I hate how they are made. I've been knitting since about 2003, though I really didn't get into it until 2005, while convelescing with a broken leg. I must have discovered something good, 'cause I'm still knitting years later.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Noro, love and hate

I have a love-hate relationship with Noro, any Noro, yarn. What I love about it are the absolutely brilliant colourways, and the way one colour seamlessly blends into the next. Except when the a given colour ends abruptly and the geniuses at Noro tie a new piece of yarn, in the same colourway, to the end.

I was knitting along, enjoying the intense green colour, when I noticed that there was an abrupt switch to magenta. Yeah, that's a little knot tying the green yarn to the red. Now the red does occur in this skein, but not so close to the green. All subtlety is tossed out the window when this happens, and this is exactly why I don't like to knit with Noro too often. This knotty problem has occured in almost every skein of Noro I've knit, since I first started knitting. And, to add insult to injury, the very fiest project I ever made was a simple garter stitch scarf with Noro. I was a noob, and didn't realise that this was really not-a-good-thing. But it has set a pattern with Noro that occurs far too often.

In the long run, this isn't the worst thing that could happen. But it is what I've come to expect from Noro, and that is disappointing, especially since I love the bright and intense colours. But I always think twice before I make a project with Noro, unless, like this scarf, the pattern really requires it.

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