Color me soft

In the newsletter, we’re talking about Noro and how it's famous for its color and the wonderful way it stripes itself as you knit.  Some knitters, however, struggle with the more earthy quality of the fibers - it's just not soft in the skein.  Some knitters are sensitive to wool of all sorts and have shied away from Noro despite the siren call of those colors.  Well no more.  Noro has added to their line of cotton and silk blend yarns with two new worsted weight fibers as soft as they are beautiful.  

 First is Shirakaba

A gorgeous blend of 42% silk, 40% cotton, and 18% wool, Shirakaba is a tonal-dyed yarn that gradually moves from dark to light shades.  It’s perfect for projects in which you want an interesting tonal effect but not a big color shift.  The silk in Shiakaba really soaks up the dye and has a wonderful reflective quality that gives the yarn a sheen that most un-mercerized cottons lack.  So you have the wonderfully soft hand of minimally processed cotton, the sheen of silk, and a smidge of wool tossed in to make it a dream to knit.  Don’t let the wool concern those of you who are sensitive to it.  These yarns are what’s called “core-spun” so the wool is on the inside doing it’s work to provide elasticity while the cotton and silk are on the outside for softness and shine.