Mmmmmmmalabrigo!

Yummy.
I'm loving knitting with Malabrigo Merino Worsted! It's so soft. I love the subtle changes in the mostly-solids (though the wild colors are fun too!) I also appreciate the nice sized 210-yard hanks and the price isn't bad at all.
I chose the Burgundy colorway to make a nice hat/scarf/mitten set. I have the hat and scarf and maybe when I can decide on a mitten pattern I'll get to work on that too.



For the scarf I did something a bit different - a lace triangle. The pattern is called 198 yds. of Heaven but I actually used even less - a measly 147 yards (a guess, based on weight). It's certainly not a shawl, but I was only meaning to make a scarf to wrap around my neck. After blocking it measured 31" wide. Small but perfectly useful and it feels so nice to wear next my skin.

Raveled here. The pattern is free and suitable for a beginner (charted or written out) but it's only on Ravelry.



The hat was a more challenging pattern. It's the Laurel from the Made in Brooklyn pattern booklet. It's meant to be a tam but um, I don't think I could pull that look off. I just wanted a regular beanie-type hat but I really liked the cabled and bobbled pattern. I ended up modifying it a bit - I did 5 repeats instead of 6 (to reduce the width) and removed 4 rows and redid the ending (to reduce the height). My previous attempts to tinker with a pattern were NOT promising but this one came out great! The pattern had 4 different cables, bobbles, a very very busy chart and tons of errata. Do not attempt this without checking those!
Raveled here