The Thing That Ate My Malabrigo
I has a yoke!
This sweater is quick. It may be knitting itself when my back is turned, because I don’t think I’m that fast. That picture was from yesterday and since then I have a bit more body and a big chunk of sleeve #1. I will have no problem at all finishing it in a month. That’s the good news.
The bad news?
This sweater is a RAVENOUS YARN-EATING BEAST.
Yes, I’ve already acknowledged that I don’t have enough yarn for the sweater and I’m prepared to work around that. But, I said, okay. If I can get to the point where I split off the sleeves in under one skein of yarn, I’m good. I’ve made top-down raglans before. I can estimate how much yarn they’ll eat. I’ve got 4 skeins of Mmmalabrigo. If the yoke eats less than a skein, I can finish the body with another 1.5 skeins, and the remaining 1.5 should be enough for 3/4-length sleeves.
The sweater heard me.
The sweater laughed.
I used up the first skein of yarn one row before splitting off the sleeves.
That can’t be a coincidence. It just can’t. The sweater knows my plan and is out to foil it. It’s waiting until I think I’m safe – until I’m just about to split off the sleeves with my tiny little remaining nub of skein #1 and BAM, out of yarn.
I made you, sweater. I can unmake you. Ribbit, ribbit.
But I’m not giving up yet. It’s going to be tight, but I may juuuust have enough yarn. I abandoned the body for awhile, and started a sleeve, just to see how much yarn would be eaten, and the news isn’t bad. The sleeve is gently nibbling at the yarn instead of greedily slurping it down.
I made some on-the-fly changes to the sleeve shaping – decreasing every inch instead of every 2 inches – tried it on, and the sleeve fits fine. The body seems to fit about right too. I’m a bit concerned that everything fits, because the sweater’s going to grow a little after washing. But my swatch didn’t grow toooo much, so it’ll be all right. You hear that, sweater? You grow too much, and I will feed you to my monster hat.
The Malabrigo is DELICIOUS. It’s soft and beautiful and soft and a pleasure to knit with and soft and so very, very soft.
I may or may not have tried on the sweater naked.
And I’ve lucked out with a fairly consistent dye lot, it seems. I’ve heard horror stories about Malabrigo’s colour variation; even within the same dye lot the colours can be completely different. I did not want to do that thing where you switch balls of yarn every couple of rows. You know why? Because I’m lazy. That’s why. I stared and stared at my 4 balls of yarn, and came to the conclusion that 3 of them were exactly the same. The 4th is just a touch darker than the others. So I am not switching balls until I have to deal with that 4th skein, and you know what? I can’t tell where the skeins change at all. S’all good.
(Heh heh. Balls.)
STOP EATING MY MALABRIGO, YOU ASSMONKEY SWEATER JACKET THING FROM HELL.
You know, I made my youngest some wooly yummy Malabrigo pants, and when she wears them, I can’t stop touching her butt.
If I knew you in real life? I would totally touch your malabrigo covered something.
heh heh heh.
5 Nov 2007 at 9:10 amOh, have you tried BFL yet? Also yummy. But pills a lot less.
5 Nov 2007 at 9:11 amI’ve always wanted to try Malabrigo. I’d TOTALLY try it on naked! Maybe sleep with it, too. But just maybe.
I always panic when I think I may run out of yarn. And every time, I have more than enough – you’d think that after a couple of years of knitting, you’d learn to guesstimate just how much you need for one project. Apparently not, huh!
5 Nov 2007 at 12:30 pmIs there a reason, and forgive me if this is a dumb question, that you can’t track down another skein or two of the same dye lot? That’s what Ravelry’s for, baby!
5 Nov 2007 at 11:06 pmYou know, you shouldn’t call your lovely Malabrigo sweater names. It might get vindictive and start slurping the yarn instead of genteelly sipping at it. ;)
6 Nov 2007 at 12:25 pmYou show that yarn who’s boss! I’ve never knit with Malabrigo so I’ll just loiter over here quietly with my yarn envy.
6 Nov 2007 at 5:43 pmUhm.. can’t you just buy a skein or two more of your dyelot?
6 Nov 2007 at 9:15 pmDon’t rip the sweater! It looks lovely and soft.
When you have the pattern modified for Malabrigo, I WANT YOUR MODIFIED PATTERN!!!!!!!!
7 Nov 2007 at 1:46 pm