Arcaucania

Normally I don't blog about stash acquisitions because frankly I don't have the money to afford yarn noteworthy enough to warrant talking about. Every now and again the local economic realities of St Closet work in my favor. You see people here are really cheap about their yarn and there are two LYS in town , Bonnies and Gruber's. Gruber's carries a lot of work horse yarn Rowan, Cascade, Opal, and the unsightly novelty yarns while Bonnie's has upper end stuff and a greater variety of fiber so Malabrigo, Manos, Louisa Harding, Lorna's Laces etc.. The long and short of it is that periodically Bonnie up and buys some very nice yarn but because people are cheap here it just won't sell. More often than not this happens with sock yarn and this makes me a very happy man because I get good sock yarn for 10 dollars a skein as opposed to $15.
This time it was Araucania Ranco in a lovely variegated purple. Apparently the company is noted for a back to basics (whatever that means) approach and uses vegetable dyes.
I think I'll make one of the fancier patterns out of Knitting Vintage Socks maybe for my mom.
As an interesting historical not Aracaunia was an "undeclared state" for a few years in the 1860's when the Mapuche of what is now Chile named a French adventurer their king. He was promptly kidnapped and deported to France but mounted several unsuccessful attempts to reclaim his throne. His descendants still hold their titles and are active in representing the Mapuche in the UN. The rest of the world thought the guy was insane and so didn't take him terribly seriously.

~Eikon