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By Pip Dawn

Ever wondered where the more creative types hide out when the macro economic climate is uncertain, to say the least! Certainly in the UK arts initiatives are always the first to go, so with an absence of government subsidized arty places to visit and with the prospect of less cash, what do you do?

Many artistic freethinkers are realizing that life can be a whole lot better without the polished commercialism of a lot of the places visited in the ‘good’ years; how many perfect photos of cups of coffee and cupcakes can you be indoctrinated with? I mean it all became a bit indistinguishable, if you get my drift…

Anyway we’re now, once again, going to be encouraged to put on our own eccentric caps… and get on with it! So, harking back to the wonder of times past (before the last, say, 40 years of progressive plasticism) people are stumbling along uncertain, unconcreted paths, towards the comforting, useful and creative skills which our grandmothers took for granted… like knitting! Personally I’ve gone for socks/sock yarn, because modern sock yarn is just so blinking beautiful and, as you only need small quantities, you can tap your hat to richer times without breaking the bank!

Modern living does have advantages in the form of incredible natural fibre yarns and easy access through the internet. Over the last few months I’ve trawled through every sock yarn on the market and narrowed them down to the most beautiful, tactically and visually and here’s what I found: Noro Silk Garden Sock: easily the most beautiful yarn available today on the planet; photos don’t capture its’ secret, you need to see and/or touch it. When you knit with this yarn the thickness varies in an organic way, which, along with the changing color and softness is literally spellbinding! A close second is Noro Kureyon Sock: apart from the silkiness of the higher priced Silk Garden Sock this has all the qualities and offers similar enjoyment to knit, due to the wonderful colors in the yarn.

Eisaku Noro is a yarn producer based in Japan. They hand dye all their yarns and have probably the highest reputation of any yarn company today. Next up we have Zauberball and Crazy Zauberball by Schoppel Wolle. Zauberball offers a wonderful color progression in a smooth single strand sock yarn with a hand-dyed, hand-wound look. Crazy Zauberball has a 2-strand twist that gives a wonderfully quirky color mixing effect. Schoppel Wolle, based in Germany, have been producing high quality yarns for over 25 years. They have a world wide reputation for the beauty and quality of their yarns.

Araucania Ranco comes from a group of designers dedicated to the artisan dyeing of yarn located in Santiago, Chile. This is traditional kettle-dyed and hand-painted sock yarn. Artesano distribute Hummingbird 4 ply for Manos del Uruguay. This is an inspirational new range of 4 ply yarn in space dyed color. This ethically traded Bolivian yarn is made from 100% Superfine Peruvian Alpaca.

Admiral Edition Tausendschon is 4 ply hand-painted, wool, bamboo and silk; inspired by the seasons and dyed by Tausendschon for Schoppel Wolle. There are also many wonderful indie dyers such as Fyberspates and, of course, the self-patterning sock yarns Like Opals’ Circus, which magically create a pattern as you knit!

Hopefully the subdued economic climate will encourage a newfound love of handmade individualism!

Copyright: written and owned by pip dawn

I’m Pip and I own The Sock Yarn Shop. This is a hobby business as I work full-time as a teacher. I only sell sock yarn (along with required DPNs) and only sock yarn I love. Please come in and have a look around: http://www.sockyarnshop.com/

Or visit my blog: http://sockyarnshop.blogspot.com/

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Filed under: Knitting

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