Our winsome Speckled Hen is soft as a feather, inviting, and playful… A true pleasure to knit! It starts with a super soft and fluffy baby alpaca roving, which then gets wrapped with an undyed fine merino strand. This construction is called “ingabbiato,” which means “caged” in Italian (the yarn is made in Peru, but the mill uses Italian machines to make it), and the term graphically describes how the alpaca roving is encased inside a delicate web of merino. When you knit Speckled Hen, you create an appealing marled fabric, the colors of the alpaca roving and the merino strand mixing together in an all-over stippled pattern, kind of like a speckled hen! Another reason this yarn’s structure is so enticing is that you get some of the features of a single-ply yarn alongside the benefits of a plied yarn. The less twist a yarn has, the softer it feels, which is why a strand of roving with no twist at all feels amazing on your skin. But it could use a little help in the durability department, so, wrap that roving with a strand of wool that has plenty of twist, and you have a creative way to get both strength and softness. And when you hand wash your finished fabric, the alpaca fills out even more, increasing in softness and developing a glowing layer of fiber that seems to float above the surface of the fabric, what we call a “halo”… Beautiful! Each Speckled Hen color comes in two versions, both with the same alpaca core, but one wrapped in natural white merino and the other in dark brown… Eighteen colors and nine pairs, it’s a story of light and dark, and the beautiful colors that connect the two! The nine color pairs are Red Raisin + Farmhouse Red, Rose Peat + Cameo Pink, Pink Bluff + Laurel Blossom, Wisteria Vine + Lilac Daybreak, Estuary Blue + White Caps Blue, Rainstorm Blue + Dew Blue, Field Mint + Fennel Green, Fisherman Yellow + Daffodil Yellow, and Quail Feather + Heirloom White. Whatever color (or pair of colors!) you pick, Speckled Hen comes in charming 50-gram balls, ready for you to cast on and enjoy!