Marvelous Malabrigo!!!

Hey everyone 😊

Today is Monday. It's a holiday. There's no classes to show you today. No drop in to show you. It's kind of a quiet day. So I thought I'd take advantage of this quiet moment to share with you about something I love. It's yarn of course. But not just any yarn. It's Malabrigo yarn!

So I took some yummy eye candy photo's of the sacred Malabrigo tree here at Great Balls of Wool to illustrate my ramblings...

Basically I just want to go on and on about how great Malabrigo is! 😍

Malabrigo comes from Peru and is a small company that tries to produce a high quality product ethically. It is committed to happy sheep and a small industrial foot print. Which is all super duper cuz it means you get to shop guilt free! But the thing that makes me loooove Malabrigo so very much is the color! 

I am a hand dyer. I think I first started dying things in about 1992 maybe? Way back then I was hand painting clothing with fiber reactive dyes. That was so fun. It's the thing that eventually lead me to try dying wool starting about 2005 or so.There is nothing for sale from the big distributes that is quite like the effects you can get by hand dyeing in small batches. With exception of Malabrigo. There are small companies doing small dye lots that are imitating the effects that hand dyers are well known for selling through indie maker platforms like Etsy and Ravelry. But Malarigo is in a class by itself. 

Malabrigo is kettle dyed. This means that it is dyed in small lots. Of course not a small as a hand dye artisan is going to be doing. But in terms of the massive dye lots that are turned out by the yarn industry Malabrigo manages to produce an effect that is stunningly beautiful and almost indistinguishable of hand dye. It's also brilliantly soft and reasonably priced considering what it is and how it's made.

These last two pictures are of Malabrigo Rasta which particularity blows my doors off. I think I love Rasta so much because as a hand spinner I strive to spin bulky super soft underspun super chunky art yarn. Rasta is a similar weight to my art yarn. But the feel of it is beyond soft! As a spinner I can appreciate the artistry of creating such a luxurious super bulky soft underspun yarn. Granted it's not made the same way. But the creativity behind it is what inspires and impresses me!  And then there's the color! Impressive dye lots. Just really super beautiful. I think as a dyer Malabrigo has a similar asthetic to what I strive for in my own dyeing. There's a picture of some of my hand dyed sock yarn on the right to compare to the pictures of the Malabrigo which was my inspiration.

Okay well that's about it for today! We are open until 5pm every night if you care to come look in person. Until you find the time to pop by! 

💖Happy Knitting💖