Habu Headquarters Visit

Last Tuesday Vanessa and I took a ride to New York city to visit Habu Textiles showroom and meet up with the owner, Takako Ueki. We wanted to show her what we have been up to for the past year and what we turned the gorgeous yarns into that she had started bringing into United States almost a decade ago. Since our last visit the showroom has changed a little and had acquired some new things to exhibit.





Being there feels very invigorating and inspiring, it's like a vortex of inspiration that is consuming you entirely and you have to, absolutely have to come out with a mind full of new ideas for exciting knitwear design! Habu textiles provides you with a very tactile experience.



We saw some new linen paper experiments dyed in indigo, which you can see above, the shades are absolutely intriguing! This yarn is not going to be carried in their regular line though.



And if you rememberthis linen, we have learnt that now it is being produced in various fantastic colors! Just look at the basket above.

Takako explained, that she has brought a lot of new yarns in and going to introduce them at TNNA in Long Beach in January 2010. But some of them are already available in the showroom. Visiting the showroom is worth it if you are in NYC, just to look through the baskets on the floor that quite often contain amazing bargains! Making a choice is what usually would take most of your time along with fondling the silk and other exotics!



But don't be discouraged if you haven't seen what you absolute have to have, you probably simply haven't found it yet. I realized that getting a yarn catalog is a great way to learn about yarns and inspect them under different lighting. You may also want to grab a couple of bargain mystery bags that contain various yarn, so you can swatch and pair up together to get the texture you like.

Concept of this yarn line is exploration. It needs to be swatched and handled, washed and pondered over. Then it would "speak" to a knitter what it wants to become!