Knitting News

Soft wear | The Record

Soft wear
The Record - December 11 2005

Ajamu and Talibah Al-Rafiq have gone soft the hard way.
They left the Bay Area and fast-paced careers as a software engineer and an insurance executive, respectively, to raise goats in the hills here. Now they live off the profits of selling one of the world's softest luxury goods: cashmere.
Their firm, California Cashmere Co., also operates California's only cashmere processing factory and one of the few in North America. More than 90 percent of the world's cashmere production comes from Asia, industry sources say.
"At first, we though we just wanted goats for fire protection," said Talibah Al-Rafiq.
That was in 1987, after they bought land near Mountain Ranch where dense brush poses a fire hazard.
The Al-Rafiqs, who describe themselves as baby-boomers but declined to give their exact ages, had both lived on family farms in the South as children.
"I always wanted to get back to it," said Ajamu Al-Rafiq.
They did some research and decided in 1990 to jump into the then-brand-new effort to raise cashmere in North America. At the time, farmers here were just beginning to buy cashmere-producing goats from Australian breeders.[more]

Where there's a mill there's a way | Wisconsin State Journal

Where there's a mill there's a way
Wisconsin State Journal - December 5 2005

Finding a mill capable of processing the fleece of her llamas has been difficult for Kristi Langhus, a resident of Argyle in Lafayette County, about 50 miles southwest of Madison.
Her fellow fiber enthusiasts Elizabeth Wellenstein of Madison and Carrie Johnson of Argyle also ran into problems processing the animal's long but soft fleece.
"Because there are so few (mills), it's basically a mail order process," she said. "Not that many mills want to spin that length of fiber."
Hoping to turn their hobby into a moneymaker, Langhus quit her job this summer as an intensive-care unit nurse at UW Hospital and the three women purchased an old stone building in Argyle and mill equipment to process the fleece themselves.
Argyle Fiber Mill, 200 S. Milwaukee St., isn't scheduled to open the retail end of its business until mid-January, but it will start processing customers' fleece by the new year. In the mean time the owners have been honing their operation with their own product. The store will sell yarn products and eventually offer classes. [more]

The itch to stitch | MetroWest Daily News

The itch to stitch
MetroWest Daily News - October 28 2005

Knitting is everywhere these days. Craft stores brim with yarns, tools and how-to books. Colleges and community education programs offer beginning knitting classes. Women's general interest magazines are even including knitting patterns in regular issues.
Is this simply a trend or is this old-fashioned handiwork becoming mainstream?
...According to Jean Holtey of In Stitches/The Threaded Needle in Weston, knitting has experienced waves of popularity throughout the past decades.
"These sort of trends are closely related to ready-to-wear. If there are a lot of knits on the runway, it carries over," she said.
The most recent knitting trend began with the scarf craze of winter 2003. Hollywood actresses to college students to housewives were picking up needles to make the hottest fashion accessory of the season. The scarf trend continued through winter 2004 though not with the frenzy of the previous year, said Holtey.
Nonetheless, the availability of knitting lessons and yarn shops indicates the popularity of knitting continues.
A driving force behind the current trend in knitting is the yarn. Today's knitters want to work with luxurious fibers. Baby alpaca, Peruvian wool, creamy cashmere and wispy mohair are readily available in yarn shops and through online distributors. [more]

Business story is quite a yarn | Times Union

Business story is quite a yarn
Times Union - October 25 2005

In an overgrown barn and a makeshift house on the edge of Schenectady County, the cottage industry lives.
Machines whir, drums spin, fleece flies, dye drips everywhere. In the end, Susan Cooper and Steve Ableman produce enough hand-dyed yarn, and the fleece that hobbyist spinners turn into yarn, to fill a shop behind the house as well as booths at wool and weaving festivals from Maine to Virginia.
"We're like a mini-mill," Cooper said.
The phrase cottage industry may conjure images of ink sketches in musty textbooks of preindustrial England, yet in a quiet corner of the Capital Region at least one business has found a niche rejecting large-scale factory production. [more]

Him and Her: A Yearning for Yarn | The Kingston Observer

Him and Her: A Yearning for Yarn
The Kingston Observer - October 22 2005

HIM: The fact that she hates to drive is legendary. Purchasing yarn is one such event that will even allow her the opportunity to get into a car and be driven outside the Kingston town line.
Having been completely familiar with the yarn department at the old Court Street Wal-Mart, she had her sights set on the behemoth new location on Commerce Drive. She’s been bugging me for weeks to take her out to the hinterland that resides just over the Independence Mall Extension Road. First off she believed that I must be lost. "There can’t be any stores out here, this place is desolate. I don’t even see lights that would tell me there are stores out her in this wilderness." I assured her that this was not really an army testing ground. I explained that this was the area where commerce would be exploding within the years ahead. She wasn’t buying, "This is crazy, If I didn’t want these new colors you wouldn’t see me here anytime soon." [more]

Truck Overturns, Spilling Yarn - ksl TV

Truck Overturns, Spilling Yarn (via The Divine Ms. Em)
ksl TV - October 20 2005

A semi-truck overturned this afternoon on I- 80 near the mouth of Parley's Canyon and spilled 42- thousand pounds of knitting yarn across the roadway. [more - including video]

Fling! an exciting new fashion yarn from Caron - Fibre2Fashion

Fling! an exciting new fashion yarn from Caron
Fibre2Fashion - October 18 2005

Yarns and latch hook kit provider Caron International launches new fashion yarn at its online web site.
Fling!
Fling is an exciting new fashion yarn that creates a super-soft multicolored fabric with a completely unique texture. Called a “pigtail’ yarn, Fling is a velvety soft multi-colored chenille with tiny sprigs of the same chenille along the main strand of yarn. With its unique construction, Fling creates one of the most unique textures in yarn today. Whether knit or crocheted, the result is a very soft and springy fabric filled with color and life. Perfect for everything from scarves and urses to jackets and sweaters and everything in between. [more]