Weekly Color Feature -- Frosted Grass

Feeling inspired? Try these Malabrigo colorways:

[caption id="attachment_826" align="aligncenter" width="422" caption="Silky Merino in Cape Cod Gray, Mint Frappe; Worsted in Vetiver, Pale Khaki; Lace in Cinnabar; Worsted in Chestnut, Moss; Lace in Lettuce"][/caption]

Chau, Hannah

1,000,000 Ravelers!

Congratulations, Ravelry -- our favorite place to find knitting patterns and excellent examples of knitter's handiwork, the home of the Malabrigo Junkies, and the source of the great community, family feeling that the knitting world has -- gained their millionth member today! We are so happy to see one of our favorite websites getting much-deserved attention. We also want to congratulate Ravelry on their award at this year's Rubicon (a convention based around the Ruby systems that Ravelry is built with.)

Knitter's Magazine K100

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Name of Project: Sock to frock
Designer: Susan Borovsky
Skill Level: Easy +
K100 Pages: 112 - 114

Choose sock yarn for a durable and washable kid knit. This pattern is versatile as the skirt is the same for all sizes; only the bodice and sleeves are sized. When you’re ready for a larger size, just reknit the bodice.

Yarn Info: malabrigo yarn Sock in color #416 Indiecita

Name of Project: Cranberry plaid
Designer: Kathy Zimmerman
Skill Level: Intermediate
K100 Pages: 162 - 163

Texture and color come together in a shawl-collar pullover. The paired blue stripes and asymmetric button placement are the perfect foil for the knit and purl pattern in multicolor yarn.

Yarn Info: malabrigo yarn Rios in colors Cumparsita (MC) and Azules (CC)

49 in a day!!

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We are honored to have received 49 visitors  at the mill from the Great Balls of Yarn store -- Robin from Great  Balls of Yarn organized this amazing trip. They visited the mill, took "some" wool and even dyed their own skeins.

It was an incredible experience. Thanks for being here! Well-known knitter Nicky Epstein was among our visitors;  as you can see, she visited our "swimming wool". We had a wonderful time dyeing and sharing with you all!

More pictures at the Malabrigo  Yarns Facebook page!

Sock Contest Winners!

It's finally time to announce the winners of our Sock Design Contest. We got close to 20 really fantastic, beautiful entries, from so many talented designers -- it was so hard to pick a winner or even a favorite! Luckily, first, second, and third prize winners all get something really fantastic for their efforts!

First Prize Winner -- Sea Wreaths by Sarah Griffiths

Sarah Griffith's Sea Wreaths includes not only one, but two patterns -- inspired by a poem about mermaids by T.S. Eliot, in combination with one of our favorite colorways, Indiecita. The hat and fingerless mittens set are both adorned with a mix of interesting basketweave and cable patterns, broken up with stockinette.

We chose Sarah's pattern not only because it was beautiful and well-written, but also because of how easily it highlights and works with one of our complicated, multi-color colorways. Since colorways like Indiecita, Archangel, Primavera and Candombe are some of our most popular, we felt that Sarah's pattern was a wonderful addition to any knitter's pattern library. It provides enough complexity for an advanced knitter to find it enjoyable, but is not outside the reaches of an ambitious beginner.

Congratulations, Sarah -- thank you for submitting such a lovely pattern to our contest!

Sarah wins a full bag of any available Malabrigo Yarn, as well as a bag of Malabrigo Dos (an unreleased test yarn) in a colorway of the factory's choosing. A few paper copies of her pattern will also be given away at a future Stitches Event with test skeins of Malabrigo Yarn, and be linked on the Patterns section of our website.

Second Prize Winner -- Heart of the Mesa by Grace Schnebly

Grace's Hear of the Mesa was an easy choice for a finalist pattern. The mittens themselves are stunning -- the incredible contrast of an excellent color choice, the clear photographs and interesting geometric pattern -- all these contribute to a real 'wow' factor for a simple colorwork mitten. Grace's inspiration comes from the woven designs of the Navajo, and pteroglyphs of the Anasazi Native American tribes.

In addition to being pretty on the outside, the pattern is clear, beautifully laid out, and well-written. It would be an excellent choice for someone starting to feel confident in colorwork, and in our buttery-soft Sock, as pleasurable to wear as they are to look at and knit. Grace's conversational tone creates a pattern that is easy to follow and understand.

Grace wins a full bag of any available Malabrigo Yarn of her choosing, in any colorway. Her pattern will be featured here on the blog and also linked on the Patterns section of our website.

Third Prize Winner -- Damask by Kitman Figueroa

Kitman's pattern Damask might look complicated, but the designer assures us that this lovely, lacy shawl is not as difficult as we might think. After looking over the pattern, which comes complete with written instructions, charts, and step-by-step instruction, even the most timid lace knitter (namely, me) would be willing to attempt this.

Of course, the beading and structure of the actual shawl would be enough to tempt anyone into knitting it -- in Malabrigo Sock, you would be creating something really wonderful to wrap around your neck! We especially loved the beautiful edging, and it's obvious that Kitman really cares about the quality of her patterns, making her an easy choice for a finalist designer in our contest!

Kitman wins a mixed bag of skeins direct from the factory, hand-picked by Antonio. They could be test yarns, test colors, or single skeins of well-known favorites. Her pattern will also be linked in the Patterns section of our website.

We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who entered our contest -- there were so many quality submissions, and you can see many of them on our Facebook page!

Keeping Kiddos Toasty Warm

Kids need fun, functional knitwear for the Fall and Winter -- it has to be comfortable, washable, durable, and colorful. What better yarn can you think of that suits these purposes than our superwash merino in two weights -- Sock and our worsted-weight Rios?

I did a quick pattern search and came up with lots of fun, kid-friendly options that you could knit up in your favorite colorways. And with 25 colors of Rios and 32 colors of Sock, you've got a lot of colorways to choose from!

Great for Rios (try the felted projects in Merino Worsted!):

Neighborly by Jennifer Casa; On The Go-Veralls by Heidi Lehman; Granville by La Drougerie, project by Minelsa on Ravelry; Orly the Owl by Brooke & Beth; Felted Mittens by Molli Hartel; Harry Potter Scarf by Tangle

Good for Sock:

Cricket Pullover by Umme Yusuf, project by Snoozeecow on Ravelry ; Tjorven by Thorvalda; XO Mitts by Joanne Jongsma; Le Cardigan by Drougerie, project by Melanie-Math on Ravelry; Child's Button-Up Socks by Sara Morris; Holly, Ivy and Steve Three Christmas Ornaments by Rebecca Danger

Chau, Hannah

From Imagiknit

Allison from Imagiknit was here again.

She visited our facility and she was looking at our test for new yarns and colors.

Interweave magazine

Knits Winter 2010

[caption id="attachment_717" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption=" photographer: Kathryn Martin"][/caption]

Ginevra’s Pullover by Amy Polcyn

· Malabrigo Twist, #96 sunset  and

· Malabrigo Lace, #96 sunset -

Malabrigo + Woolgirl

Woolgirl, a yarn store that specializes in hand-dyed yarns, has recently invited Malabrigo's Head Dyer, Antonio, to be a part of a very exciting project! Antonio will be designing a colorway exclusively for the August 2011 edition of Woolgirl's new 'Victorian Writers' themed Knitting Club.



Antonio is going to be dyeing to a garden theme, inspired by Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway," a short story that is full of delightfully colorful visual imagery. Who knows what part of the story Antonio will draw his colorway from? I pulled out a few samples from an online, public-domain edition that I felt would be especially inspirational:

"... wrapped in the soft mesh of the grey-blue morning air, which, as the day wore on, would unwind them, and set down on their lawns and pitches the bouncing ponies, whose forefeet just struck the ground and up they sprung, the whirling young men, and laughing girls in their transparent muslins who, even now, after dancing all night, were taking their absurd woolly dogs for a run... and the shopkeepers were fidgeting in their windows with their paste and diamonds, their lovely old sea-green brooches in eighteenth-century settings to tempt Americans ...and she, too, loving it as she did with an absurd and faithful passion..."

"There were flowers: delphiniums, sweet peas, bunches of lilac; and carnations, masses of carnations. There were roses; there were irises... And then, opening her eyes, how fresh like frilled linen clean from a laundry laid in wicker trays the roses looked; and dark and prim the red carnations, holding their heads up; and all the sweet peas spreading in their bowls, tinged violet, snow white, pale — as if it were the evening and girls in muslin frocks came out to pick sweet peas and roses after the superb summer’s day, with its almost blue-black sky, its delphiniums, its carnations, its arum lilies was over; and it was the moment between six and seven when every flower — roses, carnations, irises, lilac — glows; white, violet, red, deep orange; every flower seems to burn by itself, softly, purely in the misty beds; and how she loved the grey-white moths spinning in and out, over the cherry pie, over the evening primroses!"

Antonio's month, August 2011, can be purchased for $70 on the Woolgirl website. This includes not only the yarn and pattern to make a very lovely pair of themed socks, but each month also comes with several other goodies -- a themed stitch marker and an assortment of knitting notions, from project bags to vintage and boutique items. Each kit will also come with a little information on how Antonio chose the colorway, and you can participate in an official Woolgirl Club KAL, too!

This is such a fun way to get an inside look at a great writer -- and a great dyer's interpretation of her work!

Chau, Hannah

Coming Soon -- Malabrigo Book 3 Preview

Malabrigo Book 3 is still pretty far away from a wide press release, and you won't be seeing it on your yarn store's shelves for awhile, but we thought we'd give you a little teaser preview. This was a very exciting project for us to work on, and is one especially dear to me since I got to be Styling/Project Coordinator for Book 3! I worked closely with the stylist to choose all the outfits and the direction of the photoshoot, and with Antonio to choose the perfect model and location.







Let us know what you think, and which patterns you're getting excited for! This book features patterns from a wide range of really excellent designers, and we can't wait to introduce it to the world. We don't have a release date yet, and these are not the official book pictures, but we will let you know as we get more information!

Chau, Hannah

Fall in Love: Granny Bandits

Thanks to illustrator and knitter, Vera Brosgol, we now have a nickname for the newest trend in scarf wearing: the granny bandit. A granny bandit is a shawl, wrapped like a bandit scarf around your neck in a triangle. There are many, many ways to wear a shawl, but this allows it to show in the front (rather than in the back), tuck into your jacket, or lay over your cardigan. People started wearing them last season, but, like most knitting trends, it seems that the Granny Bandit is here to stay. You can show off all that lace knitting with a jumble of color in the softest of our yarns, Malabrigo Lace!

Get into fall style with some of these awesome lace patterns -- shown here knit in our Silky, Worsted, Lace and Sock yarns!

[caption id="attachment_738" align="aligncenter" width="438" caption="Wearing a lace shawl bandit-style takes the granny out of 'granny shawl'!"][/caption]

Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn Clark shown in Malabrigo Lace 'Sunset' by Mmontzka on Ravelry; Milkweed Shawl by Laura Chau shown in Malabrigo Sock 'Indecita' by LadyFirelyght on Ravelry; Multanomah by Kate Flagg shown in Malabrigo Sock 'Abril' by Rubino on Ravelry; Traveling Woman by Liz Abinante shown in Malabrigo Silky 'Acorn' by Thischickadee on Ravelry; Damson by Ysolda Teague shown in Malabrigo Sock 'Ochre' by Bbo3aav on Ravelry; Lacy Baktus by Terhi Montonen shown in Malabrigo Sock in 'Lettuce' by Strickonaut on Ravelry

Chau, Hannah

malabrigo Junkies at Stitches East

The ladies from the Malabrigo Junkies group on Ravelry say Hello!



we miss you!!

Thank you for the lovely picture

Tobias and Antonio