I finally finished my Malabrigo scarf. It turned out to be a little short, but so am I. I am learning so much as I knit more and more. For example, Malabrigo is a kettle-dyed 100% wool yarn, but it's very springy and soft. It runs through your hands nicely and has subtle but interesting variations in color. (It is a little split-prone, being single ply.) I recently ordered some Rio de la Plata, another kettle-dyed 100% wool from South America. It, however, is pretty disappointing:
The color is nowhere near as hypersaturated as it appeared online. Much of the hank was more lavender than iris and there is a wider range of tones than I was expecting (wider than the Malabrigo and the website image). I wanted to make a deeply colored beret, but this yarn just isn't right for that. It's more of a thick-and-thin than a worsted, but the variations aren't dramatic enough to show off in something like an Urchin hat. What's more, the yarn is sort of sticky. It adheres to itself and is more scratchy than the Malabrigo. I don't know what I'll do with it now. I guess this is how stashes start.
