Vogue Knitting Live NYC – YARN!!!

Vogue Knitting Live NYC – YARN!!!

I spent this past weekend at the Vogue Knitting Live event in New York City. The event features hundreds of classes taught by some of the knitting world’s leading designers, as well as lectures, book signings, and even runway shows of knitwear. The focus for me however was the HUGE marketplace.

The vast majority of the vendors are yarn companies. So many yarns in so many different fibres, all there to see, and more importantly touch. As all fabrics are constructed of fibres of some type, usually spun into threads or yarn, I always learn so much more seeing them in their primitive state. It is great to be able to compare so many different yarns in one place. Of biggest interest for me however, is seeing all the new or up-and-coming fibres.

The new queen of fibres is qiviut. This fibre is harvested from the musk ox and has long been utilised by the Inuit. Its softness rivals cashmere, it will not shrink, and is possibly the warmest known fibre. Because of its scarcity it is also four to five times as expensive as cashmere. So while I have often heard alpaca yarn described as the poor man’s (or is it woman’s) cashmere we may soon be calling cashmere the poor man’s qiviut. Another unique fibre I discovered was the silk from oysters is now being blended with silk and merino, among other fibres, in creating yarn. I also found a small company called mYak specialising in textiles made from yak. It is also a quite warm fibre and quite soft, but I fell in love with it for its colour, a nice dark umber, the natural colour of yaks. I liked the colour so much that I had to get a skein for my own personal stash.

Speaking of colour, that is the other amazing thing for me. Everywhere you looked was colour. Were it possible I would have loved to just go swatching for Copper Lune colour palettes. Textile and yarn companies are always looking for innovative ways to dye their materials, but possibly even more amazing was a trend by some companies to create yarns from the natural occurring colours of the raw fibres. This might seem limited, but there really is a large selection if you like earth tones, which I do. From white to beige to dark brown, red, and black, and many others are possible by blending the fibres in the yarn. One of the most exciting companies for colour was Tess’ Designer Yarns. They specialise in custom dye colours and small batches of whatever colours are inspiring them at the moment. I was so taken by their range that I bought a few for Copper Lune.

So if you are wondering what does knitting have to do with designing a corset? Well honestly, nothing. The last fabric one would hope to create a corset from would be a knit. So why was I there? Well, the simple answer might be that I have been knitting longer than I have been making corsets. But the more satisfying answer for you is that I will be including some knit accessories in the next Copper Lune line. As an added bonus we will be offering not just the garments for sale, but also the patterns for those of you who knit. For now I will leave it up to your imagination as to what form these knit pieces will take.