Why New Zealand Yarn?

Why New Zealand Yarn?

My (Chase) connection to New Zealand goes back to when I was a teenager.  I had a pen-pal who was living in Canada who was a Kiwi as New Zealanders call themselves.  When I was 18 I first started writing to the man who later became my husband.  When I was 21 I got to visit New Zealand for three months, it is a gorgeous country.  I came home engaged and the following year my husband immigrated to the US and we got married.  Why here and not New Zealand?  Well let’s just say the job opportunities for the young and educated are few and far between, and the US is still the land of opportunity if you know how to find it.

I work at a fabric store and started knitting again early this spring.  I had learned to knit as a teenager from my mom and made several sweaters with acrylic yarn (yeah I know, but we didn’t know any better), I even started one with cables for my husband, weaving in a strand of my hair, because I had heard the legend in Scandinavia where the women knit sweaters for their fishermen boyfriends and husbands with a strand of their hair to protect them and insure that they return safely from their voyage.  But I digress.  However I had stopped knitting and when I was pregnant with my first child I started a crochet afghan (that never got finished, partially because everyone I knew gave us blankets and we do live in South Florida where you just do not need that many blankets!) and as a new mom I passed on the idea of knitting as something one couldn’t do easily because of the need to drop everything all the time.

Now remember I said I worked at a fabric store?  Well one day late this winter we got a new book in and it was all on these adorable knit hats.  I just had to buy the book, and then when I got home I realized everything was being done on circular needles.  I could do that, because you can stop anywhere – you are not obligated to get to the end of the row!  What a freedom this brought and I have done many, many hats out of that book…

I went to a local yarn shop when we were on vacation in Pennsylvania this spring (our local yarn shop here had closed down soon after my first daughter was born and all I remember from my one visit there was the $65 skein of silk sequins in pink).  They have a wonderful place, and they were so helpful.  They had a whole room full of wool, who knew there was that much out there?

I came home with some sock yarn and some yarn for some more hats and went back to knitting.  I glanced at the knitting magazines from time to time, but most of them didn’t have anything that struck me as interesting.  Then the fall 2009 issue of Vogue Knitting came out, and what is on the cover but hats!  I bought that issue right up.  Inside where I spent as much time staring at all the lovely ads as I did the patterns, I came across an ad that spoke right to me.  It was for Zealana wool, and how they had this new variety out called Kauri and it was merino/possum/silk.  Well I knew what possums were and what pests they were, and here was someone turning them into fiber?  I had to find out more.

I checked The Yarn Sisters out on the web which are the US distributor for Zealana to see if I could find a shop carrying Zealana.  I am going to Maine in September and have a few local yarn shops on my must-do list.  But none of the stores there carry Zealana.  Nor do anything closer than the Carolinas.  None of the retailers seemed to have a web presence and no store fronts came up by searching Google for Zealana or any of the yarn names.  I was totally upset.

Until we realized that we could become that web presence and we could find out how to become retailers for Zealana, and I could share with the world my love for New Zealand and how wonderful it would be to have a use for this devastating animal in New Zealand.  So thanks to Claudia at The Yarn Sisters, my mom for wanting to take this journey with me, my husband for putting up with my craziness and my daughters for lending me some time (I work 40 hours a week at my other job mind you) here we are.

Thank you for reading this, and come back often to read the blog, try out some new patterns, post your comments, and every now and then, try the yarn, it is simply amazing!