Shiny lace!

Like many people, we're awfully partial to Evelyn Clark's Swallowtail shawl, and we've made it over the years in many different yarns. As you can see from the picture above, we've found a new favourite for it! Katia Airlux is a novel yarn – it's made from fibre blown through a tiny chained tube, and the result is really striking. It's got a deep metallic sheen in jewel colours, made subtle by the dark filling, and you get an impressive 300 metres to a ball. It's a natural for party scarves or shrugs over the winter season. But what has really surprised and delighted us is how well it blocks. As you can see, it opens out to a light-as-air fabric which shows off Swallowtail's Estonian lace so prettily, and then it holds the block like a dream. We're thrilled with this, and we're planning lots more lace with Airlux! And we're wondering what other yarns have unexpected potential. So we thought we'd ask you - what happy discoveries have you made?