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[switchbladesis]

Butterfly hat:

Pattern Here
Changes: Went down from 100 stitches to 80; my head’s apparently not all that big.
Time it took to knit:  less than a week!

So, I’ve got a problem with malabrigo.   I'll see it in the yarn shop and the next thing I know, I've already purchased it.

I’ll cradle it in my arms, caress it while admiring the impressive kettle-dye job, hold it in the crook of my neck and coo. In my mind, we’re standing on a rocky craig somewhere in Scotland; wind is blowing through my impressively shiny hair. It promises me that there will be beautiful and amazing projects in our future, and I’ll sigh oh, malabrigo .. .

And then I’ll notice that the yarn shop owner is giving me a funny look, so I’ll make an honest woman purchase of it and take it home with me.

Just look at it!



(Proof that I’m not the only one who has this reaction to Malabrigo:  Proof that no matter what it is, knitting will make it better)

The fact that this is an impulse buy yarn also explains why it’s such a heavily variegated yarn: while it’s really, really pretty, it’s also hard to find an interesting pattern that’ll actually show up with something this variegated: stockinette is boring, cables would be too busy, lace would be counterproductive, and I couldn’t find a good chevron pattern (if you know of one, tell me)

Luckily, this pattern seems to work well:.

 

I really like it, and I kind of want to make another one in self-striping yarn. It’s really easy to knit up-you slip five stitches every other row five times, and on the next row you pick up all of the slipped rows and knit them together. The decrease is really nice too-most of it happens behind the butterfly stitch, so it’s pretty much invisible. The one thing is that the decrease is longer than most hat patterns-it’s a full 1/3 of the hat-and I probably could have done with only 1.5 pattern repeats before decrease. Of course it’s not a big deal-I just folded up the brim, but it’s something to keep in mind.

 

. . . and I have things to say about Merlin and Mad Men that are probably of more interest to most of those reading, but they'll have to wait until tomorrow.  Sorry!  This is probably the last knitting post for a while-I doubt I'll finish the mittens in a week.  Especially since it's day 2 and I'm still working out kinks in the pattern. . .

Comments

[switchbladesis.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I learned how to knit on Valentine's day my first year in college. One of my friends started going on about how none of us were EVER going to find someone and we were all going to die alone with 5,000 cats. . . and well, if we're going to be spinsters, better learn how to knit.

Unfortunately, the only one of us who knew how to knit had a boyfriend, so he had to hang out while five of us crammed in to her tiny ass dorm room and she tried to get us to be able to cast on correctly.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that harassing people into teaching you how to knit while in college is a time-honored tradition, and I approve.