Tuesday, January 18, 2011

another snow day!

We are having a "wintry mix" that started with snow and has changed over to freezing rain. The kids around here (and teacher-husband also) got an even longer holiday weekend.

So I'm checking in on my ravelry group, and am linking my way through to, well, you know how it goes. You have a bit of time on your hands (dyeing was on the schedule today, but with family members home, there is no way I can turn off the heat in the house and start simmering yarn and ventilating my kitchen out the back door), and you start checking a couple things out, put some knitting patterns in your rav shopping cart, read some new blogs, and before you know it, you find something cool.

Like THIS. I hope the link works for you, it's a 6 minute video that explains how self-patterning yarn is made. It's a segment of a kids show in Germany, Die Sendung mit der Maus. Kids get to send in questions, and a guy who always just mimes goes and explores. This time he got a letter from a kid asking how the yarn gets to be so colorful, and included in the letter is a small ball of yarn.

The camera team goes to what turns out to be the Opal sock yarn factory. The commentary is spoken nice and slow and in a fun way, easy for small children to understand. I am hoping that you English speakers will understand what goes on just by seeing the footage.
The final steps involve setting with steam (when they show the thermometer), washing, drying, reeling and rewinding, but I think you'll get the gist of it.

Lastly, the guy knits himself all kinds of items - though he miraculously ends up with socks even though he is knitting flat.

OK, enjoy!

3 comments:

  1. I loved the video!!! I just wish I could understand what the narrator was saying. One of my favorite memories of my children's childhood was when Mr. Roger's took us on his "field trips". I loved watching how crayons or balloons were made and watching a violin appear out of a piece of wood was fascinating. Thanks for the video walk down memory lane.

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  2. Thanks for that video! My only German consists of counting to three and asking "Where is the youth hostel?" (which did not come in handy with the video) but it was all very clear.

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  3. That was a great vid! I've lost so much German since uni (10 Jahre seit mein Austauschsemester in Österreich, unglaublich...) but apparently I should stop watching the news and start watching children's shows! I understood perfectly, and that was a real treat to see how they apply the colorways. Vielen Dank for sharing the link!

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