more new-to-me yarn

Here's another yarn I found in my LYS. Regia sock yarn (approx. 420 m/100g ball. 70% wool, 25% polyamide, 5% acrylic). It's made by Coats.
Don't the colors of this one just make you think of a gorgeous peacock with his tail feathers regally spread? I need to design something using a stitch that mimics the peacock's tail feathers. Hmmmmm...

Here it is in their blue color scheme. The colors are so rich. Wouldn't it look fabulous in a lacy shawl to drape around your shoulders?

My favorite new-to-me yarn

Lately, I've been seeing a lot more environmentally friendly, sustainable, Fair Trade yarns on the market. Some of them had such rich, gorgeous colors that I decided I just had to buy one and experiment. My first try was a skein of Manos del Uruguay yarn that I found in my LYS. It has approx 150 yds to a 50 g skein. The colors were deep, rich jewel tones of turquoise, green, gold, brown and deep plum. It is a 70% merino extrafine wool and 30% silk blend.


I decided to make a dressy scarf for myself to dress up my wardrobe. I chose a lacy fan stitch to keep it simple and let the rich colors speak for themselves. It is so soft and luxurious that I hate to take it off! I will definitely buy more of the Manos del Uruguay yarn in future.

I enjoyed that one so much, that I decided to buy the last skein of it's sister; a skein of 100% wool in the same gorgeous colors. The colors in this skein are even deeper than the silk blend. I'm not sure what I'm going to make with this one. It's only one skein so it has to be fairly small. To felt...or not to felt...that is the question:) It's so beautiful that I hate to felt such a lovely yarn, but a small felted purse would be nice too...hmmmm...

Time to get back into my blog writing!

I can't believe it's been over 2 months since I last posted. Well, I'm going to try to remedy that and post on a more regular basis.

My oldest daughter had to do a speech and chose "Mario" from the Nintendo games of Super Mario Brothers. The speech turned out really well and she is back up to go to the gym to present it if the winner backs out or is sick! Yay! Way to go! For her speech on Mario, she saw a Mario hat in Future Shop. Unfortunately, by the time the speeches came along and she decided on her topic, the hats were sold out! Of course her first request was "Mom, I need a hat like Mario's. Can you crochet one for me please?" I responded by asking what I thought was an innocent question; when did she need the hat by? Well, by now I should know better than to think anything with my daughter would be simple. The answer was? Tomorrow!

Well I surffed the internet thinking at that short of notice and not knowing anything about Mario, really, that I could find a pattern to quickly whip up. Wrong! Well, with my red sport weight yarn and my favorite 6mm hook, to work I went, with only a picture to go by:) (should I mention that this conversation all came about in the evening?) After a couple hrs of crocheting like mad and frogging equally maddly, I finally had the finished product! A red Mario hat with a white circle in which a red "M" resided prominantly in the front center! Initially, the brim was very floppy and curled so I grabbed the only thing I could find on short notice; a red pipe cleaner! I held it along the edge of the brim and crocheted over it. Not ideal, but it did in a pinch:)

By the way, the hat was very well recieved at school and admired by all; even the teacher:) I will try to take pics of her wearing it in the next few days and post them.