Yarn Week

We often have a week in June when we concentrate on sorting out some aspect of the collection.  In 2014, we had Hook and Needle Week, when we sorted out thousands of knitting needles, hundreds of crochet hooks and lots of assorted tools and gadgets.  In 2013, it was Crochet Week - we intended to sort out all the crochet, but actually didn't get much beyond the dozens of doileys.  Last week was Yarn Week, focussing on all the shade cards and yarn samples in the collection.  As well as the volunteers who come regularly, several other Guild members joined us for a day or two.  Everything has been put in order where necessary and reboxed, and a start has been made on cataloguing.  Everyone involved did a great job - and I can say that because actually I didn't do any of it.  I still have boxes of publications to sort out, so I spent the week doing that.

But I did sneek a peek at some of the shade cards, along the way.  I was looking for the shade card for Jaeger Naturgarn, and found it in a binder of shade cards issued by Jaeger in 1979-80.

I remember knitting a Patricia Roberts design, Cream of the Crop, in the 1970s, in cream Naturgarn for the cables and welts and white mohair for the rest.  I wanted to check that my memory is correct, and it definitely is Naturgarn - the colour is called Polar.

And in the same binder was a shade card for Jaeger Gabrielle - I never bought any of it, but the ads were very memorable.  (So memorable that I can recall them after all this time.)

Jaeger Gabrielle ad

Shade cards - the proper ones with samples of the actual yarn, and not just photos of yarn - can be really attractive, with lovely colour ranges.  The names are very evocative, too: Wildwood, Glade, Autumn, Brick.  Some are a bit puzzling, though - why 'Ellesmere' (the name of a town and lake in Shropshire) for a cream/pink/light brown mix in Naturgarn?