My Boshi Yarn - My New Favourite Thing!

There are three yarn shops in Great Yarmouth.  One at the end of the dodgy end of town, so rarely visited.  The other two are cute little local yarn shops, full to the brim with soft squidgy good stuff in hundreds of colours.  Whilst celebrating payday by browsing the aisles for some christmas inspired cottons, I found this:

I took this after I had raided the stash, which is why the display looks a little unkept!  

Bright colours?  Check.  Thick and chunky?  Check.  Ooooh it was everything I'd been waiting for to begin making those winter hats everyone keeps asking me to do.  I scooped up as many colours as I could hold (that's not an exaggeration, literally as many as I could hold) and made my way to the counter.  I even went back and picked up a couple of accessories for good measure.   

The owner of the shop,  Lisa, told me a little about the 'My Boshi' brand.  It's the idea of two German skiiers who learnt to crochet whilst at a remote Japanese ski resort in order to make their own beanies ('Boshi' is Japanese for 'beanie').  The guys then had their idea picked up by DMC and now it's available all over Europe.  You can read a little more about their story here although to be completely honest, most stuff I've found about it on the internet is in German.  

Now I went to town on this stuff.  The heady mix of payday and bright chunkys appears to have forced the sensible, money-conscious part of my brain to switch off so I made it home with a ginormous stash.  

 This is most of it.  There were a couple of pinks and white too.  And more grey.  I loooovvvee grey.  It just goes with everything.  A good mix of fluorescents, brights and base colours.  These three however are my absolute favourites:

I think mossy green is such a lovely colour and the photo doesn't do the bluey-teal justice.  I can't wait to use these together.  In my frenzy, I also picked up the small pattern guide and a label two pack.  The labels are a nice touch in my opinion (although I'm sure some of you will think it's a bit gimmicky).  The labels say 'Selfmade Boshi' and add a nice finishing touch to take away that homemade feel that I wanted to avoid.  The pattern book has three patterns, one slouchy hat, one beanie and one ear warmer and gives patterns for both medium and large head sizes.  Were they a bit of a rip off?  Probably.  The labels were £2! Although I've since found them on the internet for 85p for two and the patterns I probably could have worked out if I gave it a little thought.  But still, I was happy with the things I'd bought.  

I woke up early the next day and could only think of starting a hat.  I blame the fact that it was ridiculously early to account for me making the hat double the size it should have been.  I'm not really sure how I even managed it, or how I failed to notice, but when Coop eventually woke up and began questioning who's head I was making it for, I realised there was only one thing for it; it had to be frogged.  Luckily for me, this stuff works up quickly and the hat was even quicker to make when it was human head sized rather than that of a small elephant!  I should think it took less than three hours from start to finish.  

I am so pleased with how it turned out.  With such a large colour selection, it's easy to find complimentary colours that work well together.  Here it is:

 And modelled by me: (notice the glasses?  I'm rocking a 'Where's Wally?' kind of thing)

The orders for 'My Boshi' hats are already rolling in so I don't think it will take me too long to get through my stash of colours.  Even Coop, a huge clothes snob has selected his colours and requested for his hat to be made next.  Praise indeed!  

Tomorrow, I'll be reviewing My Boshi yarn so be sure to come back and take a look.