Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Love of the natural alpaca colours

I can see many a picnic being enjoyed on this
blanket on our front lawn!
Looking out into a paddock of alpacas and seeing the range of beautiful colours grazing to their hearts' content is something really special to behold. I have been trying to think of a way to share our love of the natural alpaca colours, they way they coordinate so beautifully together and hence also our vision for Adagio Mills yarns. The best way I have come up with so far is to start working on a project that has always been waiting to be made in the back of my mind for many years. 
As a child my mother had a granny square crochet blanket. One of the classic retro ones with the rainbow colours and black edging. I'm not even sure if she made it or one of her relatives (I really should ask!) but it was something that I loved to snuggle in. I have made a few false starts over the years but have now found the inspiration to start one in ernest. 
So the two ideas have collided and I've made a start on my granny square blanket. It's really rather perfect timing for this blanket, until we are really up and running, I can only really justify working with the scraps left over from Adagio Mills yarns and that is exactly what this project needs! It will also be a fantastic keepsake record of our first yarns.
My "paddock of alpacas" granny square blanket is already loved in our household. As soon as I pull the project bag out my two boys instantly drop what they are doing and run over to claim a square or two. I think I'm going to find a stack of them at the bottom of the toy boxes once the project has been finished! They rub the squares on their faces and run around with them with all the ends flying in the air. My eldest has already announced that its going on his bed. Well... we will see.

Some of the yarns and squares currently in progress.
Yes, some of the greys almost look blue when combined with the other colours!


Wednesday, February 3, 2016

New yarns and Adagio Mills Weathered Wood

I love adding new yarns to our shop and Adagio Mills Weathered Wood and Latte will not disappoint!

What colour is this yarn?
We have had such fun naming Adagio Mills Weathered Wood. Boring engineer me initially named it Black Fawn... (made sense to me!! black fibre and fawn fibre.. black fawn. easy!) However a family member pointed out that the yarn really wasn't black so that would be confusing. So that got us talking... We kept saying maybe its "grey" or "rose grey" or "bay black" or "brown" but each time we put it near a similar shade of the colour in question it wasn't that at all! We put the adjacent photo up on Instagram and Facebook to see if anyone could help us name this yarn appropriately! (yarn in question is at the base of the photo and middle of the top section with black, grey, rosegrey and brown clockwise from left) We had so many wonderful suggestions including tweed and tortoiseshell but eventually settled on weathered wood.
Adagio Mills Weathered Wood on my front door step!
Its also show to the right up against the railway sleepers that are my front doorstep! Just blends into our doorstep perfectly.

We decided to make some 4 ply and 8 ply from this fibre. Mainly to find out what yarns people would like to use so we now have 4, 5 and 8 ply yarns available. So we will see how they go...

We have also added a brown and fawn blend that we have called latte. It is just so soft and yummy!

I can't wait to see what everyone will make from these yarns!

Adagio Mills Latte 8ply alpaca yarn

Adagio Mills Weathered Wood 8 ply alpaca yarn