Saturday, September 16, 2006

Mr Joe Sangria Meets Highland Wool

Elann has some really lovely mohair-blend yarn right now, called Mr Joe Sangria. Mr Joe is apparently a smallish Italian yarn company, and there's not much info out on the Internet about it. Sangria has a rayon binder in a silvery tone, so it's not intensely fuzzy. I fell for two colors, the Mistral (shades of blue) and Cool Lagoon (same blues, plus purples) - anyone who knows me knows that I'm a sucker for blues and purples and greens! I have a lot of mohair 'curing' in the stash, but I've never been quite adventurous enough to knit any of it until now. With the lower fuzzy-factor, I thought I'd give Sangria a try. It knits very nicely, though it's a bit scratchy. I had also ordered some of Elann's Highland Wool in the Deep Blue Sea color, for a holiday gift. Deep Blue Sea and Sangria in Mistral were a perfect combo. So I knitted them together and then carried on with a few rows of the HW by itself. Very nice indeed!

I decided some time ago that my Kitty Pi (from Wendy Knits!) needed to be re-felted, to give it more body, and while I was watching it agitate, I had an urge to try felting the Mr Joe swatch. I did that one by hand, with 'agitation' provided by brisk rubbing in my hands. The Kitty Pi is still drying, being now 3in smaller in diameter, and it's much denser, which I'd
hoped for. But I really like the Mr Joe swatch. The 'agitation' fluffed up the mohair content, and reduced the scratchy factor a lot. I don't yet have a project in mind for the felted Mr Joe Sangria, and heaven knows I don't need another tote bag, which is the obvious choice for this. (DH calls me the "Imelda Marcos of tote bags", lol!) If I were to use this combination in something, I'd want to machine-felt it.

But I thought I'd share the pretty pictures. The ruler is 6in, for scale, and the second picture is the felted one. About Elann, NAYY (no affiliation, yada, yada), but I buy a LOT of yarn from them. Great prices, great quality, great service.


5 comments:

junior_goddess said...

Funny, my Mistral doesn't look that dark...oh, can there be a lovely color surprise waiting for me somewhere in my ball of yarn??
B

CatBookMom said...

Bets, partly that's due to my scanner, though I tried to lighten the picture to what my eyes see. When I worked it with the HW, it was distinctly lighter than the HW, but as felted the colors have blended. The blended color is lighter than the HW alone.

Cindy G said...

"The Imelda Marcos of tote bags" Grin, snort,ROTFLOL!
(BTW and off topic, I'm too computer impaired to figure out how to import fonts and chart on Word or Excel-or even to have realized that was an option, hence the program purchase.)
Oh, and the yarn is yummy!

jayne said...

That combination looks great! Now your fertile mind will be ticking over what to make with that yarny possibility.

SooZ said...

You have one marmy copy cat. I caved in tonight and ordered the same yarn just because I liked your sample so much. I'd like to make an evening bag with it. I hope you dont bag me.
Suzie

P.S. Dont ask me what 'marmy' means. I have no idea. It just sounded fitting, somewhat kinder than 'slimy'.