So, I woke on the morning of 10 October 2021 to a spate of emails telling me to celebrate “Love Yarn Day”. This included discount codes for various sites, and free knitting patterns. Now, this took me by surprise, because Love Yarn Day is the 9th of October… or the second Saturday in October. This means a couple of things:
1. Living in New Zealand is like time travelling.
2. I missed Love Yarn Day without knowing it.
3. It’s still the 9th everywhere else, so Happy Yarn Day! (Even though this will post on the 11th in NZ time…..)

The whole point of Yarn Day is to celebrate and share our fibre stories. It has been approved by the National Yarn Council – no idea whose council, but my suspicion is USA. One thing I have learned in years of teaching History is that where things aren’t attributed to a country online… it is the USA.

So, what do I love about yarn? Everything. Generally. I have a love of certain yarns, and a fear of touching others. In recent years I have come to understand why, as well as the ethics behind where different yarns come from. In Lockdown last year I gave up being a vegan for a number of reasons (back to being a vegetarian here… so like 25 years of not eating meat) and a huge reason for this was the realisation of how far things have to travel to get here to New Zealand. I also realised exactly how much yarn I owned whilst moving (too much) and hitting on the understanding why I can’t handle the sensation of touching some things. I have spent the last year thinking more sustainably about yarn… definitely did not manage to keep to my “no more yarn until this is all used” goals when moving. I am now a proud user of locally sourced yarn made from natural fibres. I used to test knit patterns on cheap yarn… then churn out the final products in a semi-decent yarn. Now I skip the cheap yarn completely. I do have a box of acrylic yarn in my closet – but that sits there for exactly 2 reasons…. one being that I don’t want to be wasteful and get rid of it, and the other being that there are a couple of items that I make and sell occasionally that I offer an acrylic option for.

My favourite yarn is definitely wool. My best friend lives on a farm, and his father farms sheep… my desire is wholly to be able to knit some of the wool from the sheep that follow me about paddocks. I love Skeinz and Palliser Ridge yarns because they are natural and locally sourced. I adore The Woven – both the yarn and the community Michelle has built up. I love rare breed sheep yarn from Stansborough (and heaven help me, but I know I’ll end up ordering more… and a woven scarf…. because they are beautiful… and I know I don’t need them).

But also, I love what knitting and yarn allows me to do. It allows me to show love for the people I appreciate in a way that is practical and warming. In these times where touching people is so impossible, touching them in a meaningful way and keeping them warm means so much more to me than has ever before. One day I will document my whole journey with yarn… one day.

So, I hope you all enjoyed “Love Yarn Day” as it will be well over by the time this post comes out, and one hopes I remember it before the time has passed in 2022.