Malabrigo Rios - Yarn Review

Firstly, this is more of an ode of adoration than a review. Malabrigo Rios is my new favourite yarn. It's 100% merino, well plied and very springy, soft and squidgey. In short, it's amazing. I've knit two hats and two pairs of gloves from it and will be knitting more. It comes in 100g skeins with 210 yards so it's worsted weight and makes very snug items when knit on 4mm needles. Like Malabrigo sock I would prefer if it came in more solid and semi-solid colourways. Purple mystery and solis are gorgeous though! It has a great handle, wonderful stretch and would be perfect for garments, accessories or cabled items. The spring-back would make it less suitable for lace. Another hat, mittens and cowl in this yarn will soon be made!

E is for Emergency Shawl

This is the shawl that took 6 days of frantic crocheting to make on time to wear to the wedding. It took almost 800m of laceweight merino (bought at This is Knit) and about half a tube of beads from Winnie's Craft Cafe. It's about 1.5m x 0.5m and delightfully soft and warm. I had a really painful swollen wrist after the constant fast crochet and couldn't crochet, type or knit for a few days. Couldn't fit my watch or wedding rings on either. Now it has returned to normal and I'm easing myself back into typing and crafting again.


E brings us many incredible Mathematicians: Euclid, Eratosthenes, Eisenstein, Erdos and Euler to name a few. Euclid wrote the geometry book 'The Elements' which still forms the basis of geometry today, despite being written over 2000 years ago. Eratosthenes was librarian at Alexandria in its prime, before it was burned down at the turn of the millennium. He calculated the circumference of the earth to remarkable accuracy considering the times and is renowned for his 'sieve' algorithm for determining the prime numbers. Euler was possibly the most prolific mathematician ever and introduced much of the notation that is used today, including the 'e' for that mathematical constant that is the base of natural logarithms. Famous also for his identity
His contributions to mathematics are vast and I am entirely in awe of him.

The Irish word of the day is the verb 'éalaigh' - to escape. Often you will find a sign saying simply 'éalú' for exit or emergency exit.

Emergency Shawl

Thanks everyone for the good wishes! This is the shawl that started the Secret Garden adventure. Updates will be on the ravelry page. I'm in the middle of a colour transition so it's not portable knitting at the moment.

In fact the project has been temporarily abandoned until I finish a shawl for a wedding next weekend. I accidentally found the perfect yarn for the dress on Wednesday, the beads that evening and did the resizing calculations that night. The yarn is Malabrigo lace in Emerald Blue. I'm working off a previous crochet shawl, also in Malabrigo Lace. Started a 414 stitch chain yesterday, the rows are long and I'm almost through the first skein already. Hope I did those calculations right!