Thank you for visiting Ashley Yarns, Canadian distributors of Manos del Uruguay Wool and Cotton Stria.

Manos del Uruguay Yarn is an exceptional knitting yarn. Each 100 gram skein of a solid colour contains its own harmony of soft variations and striations. Because of this unique blend of colour, it is recommended that the knitter work with two skeins at once, knitting 2 rows of each skein in order to further blend in the variances.

Manos del Uruguay wool is hand spun and hand dyed in Uruguay. A delicious single ply, worsted weight yarn in 100% wool. The variations in the colors come from the hand dyeing process. When you knit, the color variation creates highlights in your fabric, giving it a depth and energy not found with commercially dyed yarns.

There is a story about this yarn which follows: It is said that this famous yarn, now identified with the Cooperative Manos del Uruguay, had its beginning about 1850. In the northeast area of Paysandu province where the Uruguay River flows, the sheep graze in meadows strewn with the round geodes of agate stone. These stones, when split open, reveal intricate layers of soft colors which blend into each other. These stone formations so influenced the wife of a sheep herder when she was dyeing the family yarn that she set out to duplicate the effect.

The Manos del Uruguay Cooperative now uses this method when they kettle dye their own handspun wool yarns to give an effect of several tones of a color on a single strand of yarn.

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