Thankful for Knitting

It’s bee a wild ride these last few weeks. A whirlwind of good and not so good and really really really frustrating. Through it all, there is knitting. Thank goodness. And while I consider myself to be a fairly equal opportunity knitter, I am even more thankful when I get to do some selfish knitting in one of my favorite yarns, Malabrigo. On one of the swap threads on Ravelry I spotted this gorgeous item by another knitter and playfully asked if she needed it test knit. She said yes so I jumped at the chance to work up Anansi by Caryl. I must itching for spring because her version in yellow Malabrigo made me powerless to look away. So sunny (and her photos are awesome!)! I dug into my stash and pulled out my skein + cake (this is important) of Malabrigo Worsted in the Marine colorway.

This was such a great knit – the rows, though ever increasing in stitch count, never dragged on and I was able to work on it at SnB and still participate in the conversations.

Malabrigo makes great pompoms! I used my largest pompom maker and these are just fabulous. I want to wear this all the time!

So, I said earlier that it was important that I had one skein plus one cake? Yeah, I have learned my lesson the hard way about using caked yarns from my stash. WEIGH THEM FIRST. I think I had used some of the yarn for a swatch or something and didn’t keep it, because, I ran out of yarn! Ugh. Knitter’s nightmare. I undid my gauge swatch, I spit spliced as many lengths as I could, and I only did 11 repeats. I ran out halfway through the bind off. This is totally my own fault for making an assumption, no fault of the pattern! I found some Berroco yarn that came close enough in color to use that to finish the bind off, and I’m living with it.

This project has rejuvenated my Malabrigo mojo – and what timing as it is Malabrigo March! I am planning on another project by Caryl – Chandra in Malabrigo Silky Merino, “Cloudy Sky” (and all 3 skeins are waiting to be cakes.)