Happy World Pride Week…in Knitting!

How can you not LOVE this yarn?!?

It’s so colourful and interesting and such a fascinating texture, even if it is a bit of a pain in the butt to knit with! It’s honestly the most colourful yarn I have ever *seen*, never mind purchased for myself.

For those interested knitters out there, this yarn is from a Japanese brand called Noro, and it’s their Wadaiko blend.

Noro’s Wadaiko is described as a chunky, boucle wool blend yarn (96% wool, 4% nylon). There are several other Noro yarn blends, all of which look very different from the Wadaiko. For yarn afficionados, though, this stuff is the shisnit.

If that were even a word.

I’m reasonably sure that the 4% nylon is actually the strong thread used to (fasten/braid/loop?) all of the colours of wool together.

I’ve taken a closeup here of what’s left of my skein so you can get the idea of what it looks like and must be to knit or crochet with; in some places, it looks like a running stitch from a sewing machine that “sews” some of the chunkier bits together!

This yarn is hand-dyed in several beautiful colour blends. I, of course, chose the brightest of their colourways, but others are just as lovely, if far more muted than my clown-car taste. Here is an example of some of the other colour blends:

The pattern I am knitting my precious Wadaiko yarn in is quite simple; I’m making a cowl (2 skeins, using US11/8.0mm straight needles, 38 across, ks to end) with an “infinity” twist in the front (a 180 degree twist) before sewing both ends together. Then I’ll have one of my friends who is very skilled in crochet to do a nice scalloped pattern along the outer edge. I may not have enough yarn left for the crochet part, so I’m considering going with a scallop in plain black yarn, I figure to add some “gravitas” and class to the whole thing. I promise to post pics once it’s done; I really hope it turns out as nicely as I think it will. So excited!!!