New limited edition colour in Excelana 4 ply

I've been working for some time on four new colours to add to the Excelana range and I'm delighted to reveal that the first of these new colours has now arrived and is absolutely beautiful.

This new shade is called 'Dark Mandarin' and is a gorgeous, rich burnt orange. I literally ooh'd out load when I opened the box and saw the packs of yarns. I had a very very specific shade of orange in my head when I sent the samples off to the dyers but there is always a certain amount of hope involved as water, temperature, even the batch of wool being dyed itself can impact on the final product. We have recently started using new dyers as well so there were very many variables which meant I was feeling nervous as I opened up the box. Fortunately my nerves were completely unnecessary and the finished yarn is exactly what I had in mind.

It was very important to me that the new colours both worked together and also worked well with the existing range and as you can see from this photo Cornflower Blue and Alabaster put with the Dark Mandarin make a beautiful combination - a design idea is already almost fully formed in my head.

I couldn't resist working a couple of samples this morning. Here it is in simple stocking stitch

and again using the stitch pattern for The Rose Jumper which was my original inspiration to find the perfect orange.

At the moment Dark Mandarin has limited availability and can only be purchased from mine and the John Arbon website as will the other new colours. It will also only initially be available in 4 ply. If the colours sell well they will then become part of the permanent palette.

To purchase this stunning colour simply go to the online shop here.

If you would like to know the full specification, here's the details:

Excelana 4 ply luxury wool 

100% pure new British wool

159m (174yds) per 50g ball

Standard tension: 28 sts + 36 rows = 10cm
 using 3mm needles over stocking stitch

Colour name: Dark Mandarin