I have not done much knitting so far this year. I treated myself to some Noro yarn as a Christmas present. It is called Ito - col 12 and is 100% wool.
I ordered it from Laughing Hens and when it arrived - my first thought was that it wasn't very brightly coloured. However I then remembered why I had ordered it. I saw the design called Hakea in the Noro Knitting magazine issue 19. The original design was knitted using a plain natural sheep colour. The yarn was not available but this Ito was - so I thought a fairly dull shade would be equivalent.
The design is very textured so you would not want something which was distracting. I haven't got very far yet. I have just knitted the back up to the first pattern change.