Tag Archive: malabrigo

Nearly Laar

August 29, 2011

Bit by bit, my laceweight cardigan is growing.

I spent some time on this during the weekend in hopes that I might actually be able to finish it up by the end of the month, but I don’t think I’m quite going to make it.

No worries though. I’m so proud of the progress that I’ve made on it so far. And so surprised at how quickly it has come together given what it is: 10 inches of stockinette stitch on about 300 stitches, followed by a variety of lacy contortions, soon to be followed by the scariest part of all—top down “set in” sleeves.

It’s kind of impossible for me to look at the growing pile of soft, light, cheerful Malabrigo goodness and not grin. Knitting this thing feels sort of like knitting a cloud. The entire sweater is going to weigh less than 150 grams.

This is not going to be the kind of sweater to wear everyday. I think very few laceweight yarns could hold up to that use and I really doubt that Malabrigo Lace is one of them. Still, I know it is going to be just stunning for special occasions. Or the occasional really gray day that needs an injection of bright color.

I have about 4 more inches of lace on the back of this, the two lace fronts (including scoop neck shaping), and the sleeves left to work. I’m not sure about sleeve length yet and will try on as I go. I’m debating making short or elbow length sleeves.

It may still be awhile before you see me wearing this sweater, but in the meantime, I get to keep working on it. Lucky me!

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Swatches

June 16, 2011

Thanks everyone for your feedback on my yarn-packing plan post from earlier this week.  Your comments helped me evaluate my choices and I ended up extracting 100g of lace-weight from the travel stash and not adding in any more sock yarn. Once I wound all the skeins, it turned out to be a very small yarny footprint in my luggage. Go laceweight!

It was so inspiring to unskein all this new yarn that I couldn’t resist swatching for two of the projects already. I also wanted to make sure that if I’m dragging these projects half-way around the planet that they are at least the kind of yarn-pattern match I’m expecting them to be. I’m happy to say that the swatches were a success.


These swatches are both for projects that I’m casting on with the intention of participating in online Knit-Alongs. We’ll see if this plan agrees with my summer travel.

The red swatch is for a Laar cardigan in Malabrigo Lace. Frankly, I’m a little intimidated by this sweater. Not only is it lace weight, but it also has some scary features like Picot Edging and needle size changes that affect shaping. Eek!

Three things are encouraging me to take it on now:

1) the 12-hour flight plus handful of shorter connections and layovers I’m facing next week. Door-to-door travel time ~24 hours

2) my ongoing love affair with Malabrigo Lace yarn.

3) the Summer Sweater Knitalong at Shannon’s adorable blog, luvinthemommyhood. It’s a fun, flexible sweater KAL with plenty of time before the deadline. It’s meant to be welcoming for knitters of all levels. She’s also got some awesome prize sponsors lined up. Fun, no?

The striped swatch is the beginnings of a Stripe Study Shawl in Tosh Merino Light. The colorways are Mulled Wine (a watermelon color) and Trodden (reads as beige-y in photos but is actually rose colored). This project is part of Camp Loopy virtual summer camp for knitters hosted by Sherri of The Loopy Ewe. This KAL is featuring 3 month-long summer camp themed KALs. From June 15 to July 15 participants are all making two-color shawls for the “Campfire Nights” challenge. Sound fun? You can check out all the details of “camp” on Sheri’s blog.

In addition to these projects, it is also becoming clear that I’ll probably be bringing the linen Emma shrug with the needles still in instead of wearing it as I’d hoped to be. After several false starts (when it comes to gauge, Quince Sparrow kicks my butt, people…),

I’m finally in the groove on this thing and am more than halfway finished. This is one of those knits that I’m going to enjoy wearing a lot more than I enjoy making, and those don’t tend to be my fastest projects if you know what I mean. The little shrug will fill a major gap in my wardrobe though, so I’m chugging away on it in bits.

There’s a lot of knitting here. Probably too much for a 6-week trip to a tropical climate, but I’ve decided I would rather bring too much than be stuck with time/inclination for knitting and no yarn. How’s that for a rationalization?

 

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Lavalette Shawl: All Wrapped Up

May 18, 2011

In late April I cast on two cheery pink knit gifts.  One was the socks for Mother’s Day and the other was a soft and airy shawlette in Malabrigo lace.  I finished the shawlette and delivered it over the weekend.

Sometimes I finish gift knits in plenty of time, but more often it comes down to a last minute knit binge where I do nothing but work on the last rows of the project until very late at night and then rush to get the thing blocked. The pink Lavalette shawl was definitely in the last minute category, leaving me very little time to get good pictures of it for you. Here are a couple of iphone shots of me modeling it on a cloudy morning:

Fortunately, even with the less-than-awesome photo quality,  I think you can still see that this project turned out pretty great!

This pattern, Lavalette by Kirsten Kapur, was just what I was seeking for this project, which went to live with a young family member who has been in the hospital since March and still has a bit to go before she can (thankfully!) go home. It also seemed appropriate that Kirsten uses the pattern to encourage donations to Alzheimer’s Research in honor of one of her family members who suffered from it.

I followed Kirsten’s pattern as written, but after I had worked the last written repeat, I still had 19g of yarn left and decided to make it a little bigger. I worked a full extra openwork chart and half a stockinette chart before adding the edging.  I neglected to measure the shawl before handing it off to the recipient, but you can gauge the size a bit from the photos.

This was my first time using Malabrigo Lace, and, yes, it is everything wonderful that everyone says it is. It’s soft, lofty, a little smooth and shiny, and the color was amazing. All that and it isn’t even that expensive: Full price this yarn is about $9-10 a skein (and I made this shawl from just one).

The shawl was a big hit at the hospital and that made it easy to give away (but now that I look at the photos again, I kinda want to make one for myself…).

Ravelry project notes

 

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The Start of Something Good

May 2, 2011

Here’s a very early photo of one of my new gift knits: Lavalette by Kirsten Kapur.

This is my first time using Malabrigo Lace yarn and so far, the most difficult thing about this project is putting it down. Well, I take it back. I always find those provisional stitches at the top of a shawl like this tricky and awkward. Here’s to hoping that the wonkiness of what I’ve done there comes out in the blocking. I’m a big believer in blocking as the forgiver of all lace knitting shortcomings.

So the second most difficult thing about this project is putting it down. I’ve had to do so quite a bit, however, because I’ve been completely devoted to cranking out a different pink gift knit that you’ll hear more about next week (unless you’d like to peek at the details on Ravelry here). That project is stunning me with its quick completion. I’m not doing anything different…the quickness is all about my relentless school schedule finally letting up.  The combination of classes ending and some recent cross country travel left me with a shocking and wonderful amount of new-found knitting time.

I hesitate to get your hopes up, but there may even be more new stuff to show this week. Perhaps even…gasp… some sewing.

 

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What’s cookin’ in January

January 6, 2011

With the Lace Panel Cardigan and now the Featherweight Cardigan (photos coming soon…) off the needles,  I’m moving on to some other knits, some old and some new.

Clockwise from the upper left, the bright blue WIP is a cute short-sleeved shrug with a twisted stitch cable pattern on the back.  I’m test driving this pattern for the designer and my version must be done by January 15, so this one is on the front burner.  It’s working up surprisingly fast for a fingering-weight sweater.  As tedious as it can be to knit garments at this gauge (7sts/inch), I find the results so much more wearable and polished-looking than faster sweaters.  For this project, I’m using several skeins of bright blue Pingouin Laine Nylon yarn that I’ve had in my stash almost as long as I’ve even had a stash. Yes, that’s a looong time, people.

Moving on to the right, you can see the first few inches of the back of my Twinflower pullover.  I love this sweater and can’t wait to finish and wear it.  I started it early in the fall, but it fell behind some other projects for no particular reason.  I’m looking forward to getting back to it.  For this, I’m using Elann Cantata, a special edition sportweight wool from elann.com that is soft and a little shiny.  It looks blah in this photo, but it is a really pretty caramel color in person.

Next up, the pink Pure Merino DK socks for my mom, previously blogged about.

Last but not least, the mate to this fabulous yellow Hedera sock.  This might be some of my favorite yarn ever (its Mmmmmalibrigo Sock). I know once I pick this up again I pretty much won’t be able to set it down, so I’m holding off until after the test knitting is done.

As soon as I can make up my mind which one to do first, I’ll also be making a hat for myself. Hopefully I’ll find a decisive moment soon, before it gets really cold here again.

This is plenty for one month, right?  Let’s see if I can keep my chronic startitis at bay for a few weeks. Not likely, but one can always hope.

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