Well. James and Dr Thomas went to Switzerland.
Indeed we did.
We flew out to visit LANGYARNS, who are based in the middle of the Swiss countryside, about an hour and a half from Zurich by train. And oh my goodness, it was stunningly beautiful. We stayed in the most picture-postcard Swiss village, with mountains in the distance.
I was told these were only the lower mountains, not the Alps.
Only in Switzerland can someone point at a mountain and say, “Oh no, that’s not a proper mountain.”
The next morning, Jakob Lang himself collected us, which already felt rather fabulous, and Dr Thomas gave a talk to the LANGYARNS staff about mindfulness-based stress reduction and how it relates to knititng.
It was genuinely fascinating. I behaved myself beautifully.
Mostly.
Then came the tour.
Heaven on earth, quite frankly.
Swiss chocolate and some of the most wonderful yarns in the world, all in one building. Several of the staff gave Dr Thomas and me boxes of Swiss chocolates, and I thought, “This is it. This is the life. This is why I have worked so hard.”
We walked from department to department, seeing mood boards, colour research, trend development, yarn samples, design concepts and the clever, beautiful work that happens long before a ball of wool reaches your knitting basket.
We also had some sneaky peeks at new yarns coming next year.
I am saying nothing.
Well, very little.
For now.
We saw the new baby booklet coming soon, full of baby merino knitting patterns from ANGYARNS. We saw the warehouse, how orders are picked and packed, and tens of thousands of boxes of yarn, colour after colour after colour.
We saw how samples are made by hand, how colour fastness is tested, and how production samples are compared against the original yarns. So if a light blue was originally a light blue, it stays a light blue. It does not slowly become “mysterious moody blue with attitude” over time.
This is the kind of detail that makes quality.
We also saw props from the LANGYARNS magazines tucked away in the warehouse. I was running around saying, “That’s from Punto 65! Oh, I remember this from Fatto a Mano!”
I was, in short, unbearable.
Then Jakob showed us the canal, the turbine, and how clean energy is part of the LANGYARNS ethos. Not a marketing slogan. An actual working thing, powering an actual family business.
That evening, Jakob invited us to his home for dinner. We met his wife, joined some of the LANGYARNS team we are friendly with, had a barbecue, drank Swiss red wine, laughed, talked, and met some of the children of his employees.
It felt like being welcomed into a family.
And then the rain started.
Jakob’s home is high up on the side of a hill, and as the evening went on the thunder began to roll in. We grabbed the contents of the table and ran inside with plates, glasses, salads and bits of barbecue, trying to save dinner from the Swiss weather.
Then Jakob suggested we stand in his open-air veranda to watch the storm.
Well.
The thunder cracked. The lightning flashed. The rain came sideways. We were soaked.
Absolutely soaked.
So we ran back inside, laughing, dripping wet, and did the only sensible thing a person can do in such circumstances.
We had more Swiss chocolate.
And that, honestly, was one of those moments I will remember forever.
So many wool brands now are owned by banks, investment groups and venture capital. But here we were, sitting with the owner, the sixth generation of the family, in the house he grew up in as a child, hearing stories, asking questions, getting drenched on a Swiss hillside, eating chocolate and understanding the people behind the yarn. I asked Jakob about a yarn, he knew the percentage of fibres in its mix, I asked "do you remember them all" - "yes James, I developed each and every one".
The next morning, Jakob drove us to Zürich and took us around yarn shops, showing us how beautifully LANGYARNS is displayed in its home country. He even took us to the famous Bahnhofstrasse, where one department store has gentlemen’s outfitters in the lower ground floor, inside what used to be a bank vault. You can still see the safety deposit boxes.
At which point you think, “Yes. I am definitely in Switzerland.”
Then it was time to fly home.
We were thoroughly exhausted, full of fibre concepts, new ideas, future knitting projects and renewed energy for LANGYARNS.
And then, of course, there was a three-hour flight delay because of issues with British air traffic control.
But not to worry.
Dr Thomas and I each had a pint of local Swiss beer and opened one of the boxes of chocolates we had been given.
Beer and chocolate.
Before we knew it, it was time to fly home, and we were tucked up in bed in London by 10pm, absolutely shattered.
The next morning I woke up to 105 parcels to pack because we had taken two days off.
And we did it.
Many of you will have seen this week that Lang have given us a free 6-ply sock pattern for the Nova Scotia socks, designed by Tina from the LANGYARNS marketing team. There is a knit-along with it too, and lots of you have already downloaded the pattern and ordered the 6-ply sock wool.
Do give it a go. I think you will be really impressed by how easy and satisfying the 6-ply toe-up socks are to knit.
We are proud to sell LANGYARNS. The partnership means a great deal to us, and the quality of the products is second to none. After meeting the people, seeing the care, and understanding the family behind the brand, I feel even more strongly about that.
This week, Dr Thomas is off work. I can see he has put various things in the diary, but mostly he is fiddling about doing DIY, painting skirting boards and causing the kind of domestic disruption I must simply live with while I pick, pack, process your orders and buy new stock.
But I love having him at home.
Have a wonderful week, happy knitting, and remember: a family business is the kindest thing to buy from.
There are no shareholders here.
Just like McIntosh and LANG, we are real people.
We care.
James McIntosh
The One-Man-Band that is McIntosh and Dr Thomas who won't stop yodeling
