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A Look Behind the Scenes at Noro

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noro yarn in the makingA Japanese television program called “Great Gear” recently featured a look into yarn producer Eisaku Noro’s production facilities, and it’s a great bit of eye candy for lovers of knitting and color.

The show calls the yarns “exquisitely colored” and Noro says each of his yarn blends uses 10 to 20 different colors, with the hope of emulating the colors of nature. He says originality is at the top of their list of priorities, which is evident in the company’s lovely yarns.

The company has been around for 40 years and is now distributed in 30 countries. It’s a lot of fun to see how this yarn comes together, especially looking at the stripes lined up as unspun wool.

If you want to see the video, visit the Great Gear website, click on “Hand Crafts Special 2” and you’ll find it there. I’d love to know what you think of the video or of Noro. I just finished a sweater in it for my next book and it was so much fun to knit!

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Book Review: The Wandering Knitter

Knitting and travel are two hobbies that are highly compatible. Travel often involves waiting or time spent on planes, trains, boats, etc., time that can easily be filled by knitting, a portable and productive craft you can do most anywhere (and yes, you can take your knitting on a plane most of the time). 

Krista Ann combines knitting and traveling regularly and ended up visiting every continent in 2022 with her knitting needles along for the ride. The Wandering Knitter explores travel, knitting and learning new knitting skills no matter where you are. 

This isn’t a book for beginners, but if you’ve wanted to learn techniques like brioche, cables, lace, colorwork, mitered squares and short rows, there’s a set of more beginner level patterns followed by ones that are bigger, more detailed or required a little more skill. For example a brioche washcloth is the beginner pattern, while a brioche sweater (with unexplained exceptionally long sleeves) is the stepped up project. A basic mesh lace scarf becomes a more complex lace kerchief. A giant mitered square cowl graduates to a mitered square tote bag. 

Interspersed among the patterns are essays about traveling to different continents and what she saw there. There are also tips for traveling with your knitting and tips for reading charts, but no tutorials for knitting skills (other than a written explanation of how mosaic knitting works). 

Some of the projects would be useful to have when traveling, such as fingerless gloves, a warm headband or a colorwork hat. The travel angle is an interesting hook for a book, but I would have enjoyed essays more about specific incidents or shopping for yarn in a different country or something more than the general essays about things she’s liked and places she’d like to go back to. 

Still, if you’re looking for a skill building book that doesn’t focus on the basics but gives you some wearable, attractive accessories, this book is a good one to check out. Just maybe make the sleeves shorter if you knit the sweater. 

About the book: 128 pages, paperback, 20 patterns. Published 2026 by Quarry Books. Suggested retail price $24.99.