MORE TRAVEL TALES WITH JAZKIDS

Posted by admin on Sep 7, 2011 in Travel tales with jazkids | 1 comment

MORE  TRAVEL TALES WITH JAZKIDS.

 

It has been sometime since I last wrote but the launch of our new website has prompted me to set about writing down some experiences we have had this year.

 I took my annual business trip to Thailand in February with some members of the family.  This year for the first time my granddaughter was able to meet her Thai cousins in Chiangmai which was a wonderful experience for everyone.  We did the usual trips to the night markets, the tiger kingdom, orchid farms and elephant centres. A new adventure for me was the excursion to the area where the Long-neck tribes live and work. Their farming practices were an amazing study in organic methods and the craft skills were incredible to witness. It was in this small settlement of Burmese refugees that I saw a product which I had endlessly searched for in the U.K. Imagine my amazement at seeing these people patiently spinning the very yarn that had proved such an impossible task back home. 

We decided this year after numerous requests to launch a new knitwear range for our Jazkids customers.  A chance meeting at one of our promotional events had bought me into contact with a lovely lady called Kasia and it was she who offered to knit for us a new range of cotton knitwear.  The yarn we used was a denim yarn which was the colour of indigo blue which gave an attractive flecked appearance.  I tried to source more of the yarn but found it virtually impossible as the company who supplied her had gone and it seemed that our new venture would fail before we had even begun. 

The sight of the Long-neck women working with this yarn was a small miracle.  The tell-tale sign of indigo dye on this yarn is that before it is washed several times the blue colour stains the hands.  A problem that Kasia had explained to me only a few months previously.  Here I was thousands of miles away from home watching as the workers weaved and spun with the very same blue dye seeping onto their hands! Who would have thought that my yearly trip to Northern Thailand would bring the answer to my problem. 

Our new range is now available to on the website.  We have now introduced another yarn which is made from bamboo wool which follows our ideal to make our collections with natural substances whenever possible. 

I look forward to my next trip to that wonderful country to see what else I can discover.