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I seem to be on some sort of blogging binge. I just can't stop updating! =) Hopefully this trend continues.
As promised, I have some pictures to share. First, here's my fairly large Malabrigo purchase from Loopy.
Like little bundles of love. On the subject of love, I LOVE the color. It's called Olive. Very fitting.
Oh, Malabrigo. I e-mailed them the other day. I started this group on Ravelry called Malabrigo Junkies. We were discussing our favorite colors (Charrua!) and someone mentioned Little Lovely. I have not had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Lovely but she seemed to be quite coveted. The possibility of her being retired came up--a member may have read it somewhere I think, so, to finalize the matter I e-mailed the people up in Malabrigo land and asked them about their color cycle and retirees. (I also oh-so-shamelessly promoted Malabrigo Junkies). I got a reply in two days from Tobias who said that they've only retired a few colors and that Little Lovely (as well as Charrua) were still on the color card. He also mentioned that he'd be happy to link our group to the malabrigoyarn.com website. Mmm.
Just for that we'll celebrate with another picture of this delicious yarn:
I'm really churning out those bookmarks. They're really quick and easy. They'll probably serve as backup Christmas gifts.
The pattern calls for a 1.25mm crochet hook, but, unfortunately the store I bought the Malabrigo lace from had a 2.5 as their smallest. I purchased it anyway. On my way home I stopped at a Hobby Lobby and picked up a 2.0mm and a 1.5mm. 1.25 Just seemed to small for Malabrigo's thick&thin-ness. It turned out that the 1.5 was too small, I couldn't even hook the yarn. The 2.0 worked but the resulting bookmark ended up tight and lost a lot of stitch definition after I ironed it. I tried the 2.5mm and it worked perfectly.
Yay, tassels.
Crochet is surprisingly easy (and fast!) once you get a good feel for how to angle the hook. My tension is still a bit all over the place, but, I think it's becoming steadier as I continue to pop out these bookmarks. I love that there's only one live stitch, it's easy to drop it and pick it back up again. In knitting, when my needle falls out, I stop breathing and move as slowly as possible as not to disturb the now live stitches who's seemingly only desire is to drop. And then painstakingly re-inserting my needle, making sure each stitch is facing the correct direction. Tedious!
While, I AM growing a certain fondness towards the hook, I will always prefer the knitted fabric to the crocheted.
My sweater finally dried. My room is no longer filled with the odd scent of wet wool. The sweater though smells sweet and natural. I actually don't smell the Soak on it at all--I may not have used enough. The directions say one cap-full for every gallon... I soaked my sweater in my bathtub... how many gallons is that? I naively guessed 2 gallons because I ended up only using 2 cap fulls. ^_^ Oops?
Mr. Seamless Hybrid wasn't dry before my photoshoot, so, I'll have to take pictures of him another day.
I'll leave you with Branching Out. This scarf has been waiting patiently underneath my desk for me to finish the sweater. He's finally getting some pattern repeats knitted and is looking good, albeit a bit oatmeal-y.
I'm giving tassels a chance.
Knit hard!
People have been asking for the moss rib stitch pattern for the scarf I made in mmMalabrigo. The scarf was actually shown to me by the not-so-LYS salesperson after I had asked her for recommendations for a pattern in the very varigated charrua colorway. It was actually knit in a darker color of Malabrigo but it still looked very cool. A tag was attached to the scarf so she went to the back and made a copy of the pattern.
I don't really know who the pattern belongs to (although the tag has the name "Kathy" scribbled on the side), but, since it was shared with me for free I'll share it with you! =)
The original pattern called for 2 skeins, but, since I only purchased one I changed the CO number as follows:
moss rib stitch scarf in malabrigo worsted
#10 needles
CO 24 stitches
Row 1: sl1k, k2, *p1, k3* across row to last stich, p1
Row 2: sl1k, k1, *p1, k3* across row to last 2 stitches, p1, k1
Repeat rows 1 & 2 to desired length.
To Bind Off:
With right side facing (Row 1):
BO in pattern but in each "K3" section k2tog once to prevent ruffling of the edge.
So what I did was:
sl1k, k1, ppso (pass previous stitch over), k1, ppso, *p1, ppso, k2tog, ppso, k1, ppso* p1, ppso
If you decide to use 2 skeins the pattern says to CO 32 stitches.
Happy Knitting!
i am now officially obsessed with Malabrigo. it comes in such beautiful colors and it's so unbelievably soft. mmmm.
last week i went on a spontaneous trip out to evanston to check out their yarn stores. i brought kevin along with me. after a strange mix-up we got to closeknit and took a look around. i didn't really see anything that was really grabbing me. i wanted something REALLY thick in blues and browns. i had seen a scarf on grey's anatomy that i loved and wanted to make.
sadly, i couldn't find yarn that i wanted so i settled on this blue varigated wool. at this point kevin had become impatient and really wanted to leave. so, i had the hank wound into a nice ball and went to leave.
as i turned around to shut the door behind me i noticed a few skeins of yarn sitting on a table. my eyes moved to the tag and i read malabrigo. i made a grabbing motion towards it but at the next moment kevin pulled me out of the door.
the rest of our time in evanston was spent walking around, eating, and exploring. the whole time i couldn't get malabrigo out of my head. i've read SO much about it and i really wanted to get a feel. so, i finally asked kevin if i could go back. he agreed to wait in the car while i bought my yarn.
there wasn't a lot to choose from. only a few single skeins of random colors. i noticed glazed carrot, sunset, lettuce, and indigo. i went for the glazed carrot. when i got to the front i noticed they had a few more skeins at the counter. i asked if they were for sale and lady said yes and that they had just recieved a new shipment. she went to the back and brought out bags and bags of new malabrigo for me to look at. it was bliss. i ended up buying charrua and vaa.
charrua: browns and blues
vaa: blues
i LOVE them. the yarn store woman also gave me a copy of a pattern for a moss rib stitch scarf. i decided to give it a try. the pattern calls for 2 skeins of malabrigo but i only purchased one in each color. so, instead of CO 32 stitches i did 24. i ended up with a good 63 inches.
malabrigo charrua scarf in moss rib!
i've been watchin the knitting help forums often and they had been recommending the scrunchable scarf pattern to use with malabrigo so i figured i should try it out. a few days later i returned to closeknits in evanston to buy 3 more skeins in tortuga, velvet grapes, and lettuce.
i decided to take another trip to some new yarn stores. i really like to drive out and find shops that carry a decent selection and have great customer service. i've been looking for some manos del uruguay yarn in any of their varigated patterns and i managed to find some. i also found a shop with MORE malabrigo at a cheaper price than i had originally bought it at. so i ended up getting 2 skeins of amber gold. beautiful!
for the scrunchable scarf i ended up using velvet grapes.
scrunchable scarf in velvet grapes
i'm not too fond of the pattern. i definitly like the moss rib stitch more, but this is still pretty decent. i like how it causes the columns of stockinette to tilt a little on their side. but, what i like about the moss rib is that each column of stockinette has a decent amount of space in between, it's even on both sides, and it creates deep channels. here's a close-up.
reminds me of pebbles or cobblestone
well, that's my deal with mmmMalabrigo. if you havn't knit with it yet you should definitely try it.
mmmmmmmalabrigo!
