Rainbow Crow

Rainbow Crow is a simple, slouchy beret-style hat worked in a sport weight yarn and a lace-weight mohair held together throughout.

When I was little, one of my favorite picture books was Rainbow Crow by Nancy van Laan. The story is a retelling of a Native American fable about how forest animals first stole fire from the Great Sky Spirit. According to the story, the crow wasn’t always black—it used to be a beautiful, colorful bird with a beautiful singing voice. One especially cold winter, the animals were freezing and they elected Crow to steal a flaming twig from the Great Sky Spirit in order to make a fire and keep warm. Crow did just that, but on the long journey back home, the twig in his beak burned shorter and shorter. The smoke made his voice into the raspy “caw” we hear today, and the soot and ashes stained his feathers black. Still, even today, if you look closely at a crow’s feathers, you can see the irridescent colors underneath.
The combination of Malabrigo Arroyo in “Candombe” combined with sparkly black mohair evoked, to me, the hidden colors in a crow’s feathers.