I am one of those mad crazy knitters out there eats, drinks and breathes knitting.
In 2006, I moved back to Wellington, New Zealand after living the corporate life overseas for 20 years. My new life in New Zealand was like suddenly finding oneself in a grey zone. Where had my life gone!? What had I done!? The time was ripe to find a new interest in life.
One day, my sister asked me to teach her how to knit again. After my grandmother taught me as a teenager, I had taught her when she was a little girl, but she hadn’t picked up needles since. This required a visit to a yarn shop – like her, I had stopped knitting for many years. I had even given my needles away after all that time. Out of the phone book, we picked one of Wellington’s local yarn stores. Walking in the door, I was overcome – all that colour! All that texture! The sensory overload was too much! I was hooked! I too, bought some needles and yarn that day, and since then, barely a day has passed without knitting.
As I got to know the yarns, and with a sharpened environmental conscience, I became particularly drawn to the natural yarns – wool, possum, alpaca, mohair. That special scent of sheepy goodness of yarn not over-processed.
Particularly, yarns made by our small producers – the sheep’s back to shop floor operators; the indie dyers and spinners; all of whom who make such wonderful products and are contributing to our sustainability as a nation. Natural fibres, quality production. It’s all here. But not readily found.
This blog will hopefully share some of my knowledge of what’s here in New Zealand.
My contribution to the sustainability and diversity of the yarn industry in New Zealand is to help bring these yarns to the attention of the world. As this is a personal blog, I set out my own thoughts about these yarns purely for the love of sharing information about them.
If you’d like to drop me a personal line, you can contact me at wsleong AT hotmail DOT co DOT nz.
Looking forward to meeting you all online.
KiwiPurler.
Thank you so much for posting the ‘yarn tour’ of NZ! I am about to visit and couldn’t find a lot of relevant info … especially laid out in such a thoughtful and concise manner. Thank you!!!
You’re very welcome.
I hope you have a great time here.
I have nominated you for a Kreativ Blogger award. I really enjoy your blog.
Aw, thanks!! I popped into your blog this afternoon and saw it there. It’s really sweet of you to nominate me.
Two of my closest friends – we taught together at universities – both told me that, following my blog, they hear a lightness and joy in my writing about fibers etc. that they never saw in my academic writing.
So I understand!
Love your e-mails and I too am a fan of Anna Gratton’s wools currently knitting some of her black liquorice I have spun also loved her dark paua years ago
Hi I’m a new visitor to your blog and have enjoyed reading your articles. I’m in Adelaide South Australia and I am going to the South Island in November. I was trying to look up some of the addresses of the yarn places you recommended visiting and seem to have a problem via the Yellow Pages, it wasn’t recognizing the businesses names. What am I doing wrong as I would dearly love to see them.
I suspect some of the links I put into that post have expired. If you send me a list of the yarn places you were particularly interested in, I can probably update you. Failing which, you could Google the names to see what you come up with. It’s probably time I did an update! One update I can think of is that Quality Yarns is now called Bruce Woollen Mill. I haven’t yet been able to find out if it still has a factory shop, but it’s on my list of things ‘to do’. If you are in the area (1 Edward St, Milton), you could stop by and have a look…
Flagstaff Alpacas & Clifton Wool’n'Things Dunedin, Omaru Textile Exchange with Doe Arnott, couldn’t bring up either Quality Yarns or Bruce Mill but will drive past 1 Edward St Milton, Thickthorne Llamas-love alpaca wool so though I would take a look at llama wool couldn’t find them… and you gave the address for the ‘Touch Yarn” showrooms so will try that one. And if you could maybe Ashford yarns in Ashburton…don’t know if I will be able to get my husband to stop for all of them but am definately going to try. Many thanks for getting back to me and helping me out with the addresses.
Hi! Nominating you for the Reader Appreciation Award … my next post.
Have nominated you for a Leibster Award – you just sneak in! http://womaximum.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/the-delight-of-a-first-award/