Huanui & Haunui Cotton
The original Haunui is a 100% wool yarn (pronounced hoo-noo-ee) is completely unique and available in a gorgeous range of natural (undyed) colors.
And as of the fall 2023, it is now also available in some dyed colors in a blend with cotton, too!
Huanui Wool:
All the wool fiber used in the yarn is spun from the flock at one particular farm in New Zealand. This farm, Taranui, has specifically bred their flock to maintain the natural dark colors (mostly black, brown and grey), which is what most ancient sheep breeds were until they were bred to be white to suit the commercial wool industry.
This flock of halfbreed is a fusion of Romney-Merino; the Romney gives the fiber strength and length while the merino lends it spring and softness. The micron count is on the order of 22 - 24 (for reference the average merino is 21.5 micron, extra-fine and superfine merino are 18 or 19 micron and cashmere is usually 15 micron or less).
The original Haunui wool has become the "fave" of a big group of my "20-something" knitters for sweaters.
Each ball of Haunui Wool has 440 yards, so for a 40" chest at this gauge, figure 3 balls - just to give you an idea. It is recommended knit at 4-5 sts/inch on a US 8-9.
Since each year the flock changes a bit-older sheep die and lambs introduce slightly different shades of colors - the original clip (colors 1-7 or 8, I believe) has a slightly different range than this last fall (colors 9-16, I believe). BUT....each clip (that's the term used to describe that shearing) is sorted into 6-8 different colors from light to dark. So while color 7 is no longer available, it was a bit darker than 6 and a tad lighter than 8 that year. And in this year's clip, color 7 is closest to color 15, I would say
.
Since each clip varies, it is really important to get enough of the yarn for your project since the next clip may be a shade darker or lighter. Think of it as "dyelots" even tho' the colors are natural ad not dyed!
To best see the colors of the wool relative to each other, be sure to check out the gallery of photos and if you click on the group shot, in the description you will see the color numbers as they appear in the photo. You'll notice that I put color 16 in both the light and dark group so you'd have a frame of reference.
Huanui Cotton:
The new Haunui Cotton is 60% blend of the wool described above along with 40% of Australian cotton. Australian cotton is known for its high yield and relatively low use of resource for production (between using the CSIRO varieties of cotton which resist pests and using lady bugs to help with the rest, the 1500 farms that raise cotton in Australia have reduced their use of pesticides by 80% AND Australian cotton yields more cotton per drop of water than that produced anywhere else in the world!)
This lovely blend is put up in 150 gm balls, each featuring 410 yards. It is recommended knit at 5 sts/inch on a US 7 needle. A couple of photos in the gallery here show projects in the Fall 2023 Noro Magazine that were designed for this yarn.
See other Noro yarns.
Price Per Giant Ball of either the wool or wool/cotton: $39.99
