Yummy Malabrigo, how do we love thee!!!

What a way to start the New Year! We are up to our (very warm) ears in lovely, soft, delicious Malabrigo knit items from all seven Malabrigo books!!! We have so many that we are having a hard time finding room to display them all!




Here are just few of the samples from each of the books.  Every item is knit up in one Malabrigo yarn or another.  There's just too much to list them all!






 Malabrigo book 4 is another treat for the eyes with the lovely cover convertible wrap Enrejado in Silky Merino and the sumptuous cardigans - Antiguo in Baby Merino Lace and Lineal in Rasta.

In case you missed it last week, we will be starting a second KAL on February 1st and running until March 8th!  Due to popular demand it will be the Truckee Shawlette, our free pattern from December featuring Malabrigo Lace Superwash. We will be operating this KAL in the same manner as the Downton Abbey MKAL, with all of the support and discussion in our Ravelry group.

 Last week, in the Friday Jan. 18th blog, I showed you how to do the increases this pattern calls for, M1R and M1L.

As promised, this week I'll talk about lifelines. What are they and how do they work?

While this project is pretty simple, using lifelines will help you keep from losing any of your M1s should you need to rip back.

What is a lifeline?  A lifeline is a strand of yarn that you insert into your work at a point when you know everything that has been knit before that point, has been done correctly.  It's best to insert it into a plain knit or purl row when possible.  It's also best to use a smooth, slippery lifeline, like mercerized cotton or dental floss but any thing that's not grabby will work.

Once you've completed the row of knitting that you wish to use for your lifeline, thread your lifeline onto a darning needle and begin feeding it through your stitches on your needle.  DO NOT remove the stitches from your knitting needle!  Just run the lifeline through the row of stitches.  If you're using a circular needle, sliding the stitches onto the cord will make room to insert the darning needle.



Another way a lifeline can be inserted if you have interchangeable needles that use a tool to tighten the connection, thread your lifeline through the same little hole used for tightening tool and then just knit normally. Your lifeline will be threaded through the stitches as you knit your row. If you use Addi interchangeables, the Addi SOS cord is now available which has a little slit near the join that you can open up and insert your lifeline into so you can knit it into your knitting the same way.


That's all there is to inserting the lifeline!

When you knit your next row or round be sure to NOT knit the lifeline with your stitch or you will have to cut the lifeline into little pieces to get it out.  Otherwise, removing a lifeline is easy, just pull one of the ends and it should slid right out of your project.  I recommend leaving all of your lifelines in place until you finish your project, just in case.  But if they bother you, they can be removed when you're certain all is well.



 If you have further questions please let me know!  askTerry (at) jimmybeanswool.com (please remove the spaces and replace at with @ to send an email)

Happy Knitting!

 Terry

Now that everyone is getting settled into the Downton Abbey Mystery KAL we thought this might be a good time to start planning the next knit-a-long.  We've had quite a few requests to do December's free pattern the Truckee Shawlette as a knit-a-long so that's what we're going to do!  I'm excited because not only is this a beautiful shawlette, the yarn it calls for is the machine washable, lace weight merino wool yarn Malabrigo Lace Superwash!  This is an exclusive yarn so it needs an extra special project to make from it and the Truckee Shawlette is just the thing!


We're setting a start date of February 1st and the KAL will go for six weeks ending on March 8th.  This is a fairly easy knit but will take some time because of the small yarn.  We do have some kits put together on our website for easy color choices or you can mix and match yarns for your own custom look.  I've already chosen my yarn as those of you who follow us on Facebook may have seen.

Tosh Prairie in Worn Denim and Malabrigo Lace Superwash in Volcan

Of course you can choose other yarns and we'll be happy to give you any advice you may need.

To help you along I've filmed a new instructional video on how to do a M1L (make one left) and M1R (make one right).  In it I show you how to do both M1 increases and I also show them done both English (throwing) style and Continental (picking) style. It will be edited and up on our website soon, but in the meantime, I've created some written descriptions for you complete with pictures!

Here is a description of each:


Make One Left (M1L) to do this increase you will need to have at least one stitch on your right hand needle.  Look at your knitting between the two needles.  See the little bar between the two stitches?  With your left needle pick up this bar going from front to back.  Now, knit the loop you now have on your left needle through the back loop just as you would a normal knit through the back loop.

By knitting through the back loop you are adding a left twist to the increase, making it invisible.  Without the twist you will get an eyelet much like a small yarnover instead of an invisible increase.

Make One Right (M1R) this is the same as a M1L except, with your left needle you will pick up the bar between the stitches from back to front and knit it through the front loop, adding a right twist.

Perhaps an easy way to remember this is:
M1L - pick up front to back, knit in the back - front, back, back
M1R - pick up back to front, knit in the front - back, front, front



Next time I'll take about lifelines, what are they and how do you use them.

Have fun and I hope you'll join us for the KAL!

Terry