a tale of two yarns

i heard so much about the beauty and magic of mmmmmalabrigo, and it wasn't until last year that i discovered how much i love this yarn.


in hummingbird...

in stonechat...

and i just had to have ravelry red.

this is a sample of the mal i own.  i hoarded it until i wanted to knit faraway, so close and my first pair of mittens...and was delighted to find that i had all i needed in my stash.  i love stash!

my mal is all worsted weight.  someday i would love to try fingering weight mal.  if my shawl feels wonderful, can you imagine a pair of socks knit in mal?  scrumptious.


but for each yarn i adore, there's a yarn out there i can't stand.  hello, mohair!!!



i tried.  i really did.  i tried to knit belinda.  i remember how carefully i picked the yarns for the shawl (discovering they were the same colors used by the mason dixon ladies!).  i remember how i marked off the pattern with stitch markers so i could easily track my stitch count.  perhaps it was the pattern and not the yarn.  but i loathed using this yarn.  it was sticky and fussy and it was an absolute bitch to rip out.  not to mention, its fuzziness made my nose itchy and i sneezed a lot.

after languishing in my knit basket for almost a year, i took a breath, sighed, and frogged belinda.  i probably lost a couple yards of yarn, but i somehow managed to salvage the yarn.

i don't know what to do with it.  i suppose i could use it with another yarn as an embellishment or edging.  i think i'll probably put it on the destash list, for someone else dreaming of belinda or another equally airy shawl.