I received this beautiful yarn for my birthday.

It is a laceweight single dyed a most beautiful indigo blue called Tuareg. It is 100% baby Merino from Malabrigo from sheep raised in northern Uruguay. They are a family owned company based in the same region as the co-operative Manos del Uruguay. Their dyeing and processing utilises envioromental technologies to reduce water, chemical use and dye waste. Exchanging Fire wrote a very interesting post several years ago comparing the two Uruguayian yarn companies.

I searched around for quite some time for an appropriate pattern for this yarn. I was considering a small Boo Knits lace shawl but these really are very very lacey and I am not sure that is really my style. Then Knit British shared the Jagger pattern by Katya Frankel on her Instagram feed and I knew at once this was the shawl for this yarn.

I cast on several times around New Year. This laceweight single is very delicate and I broke my cast on after several rows just stretching it out to look at! Then I got confused by the pattern when I used stitch markers to show the repeat. It is one of those patterns which shifts slightly every row so the stitch markers just led me astray. For such a simple pattern, it took a surprising number of false starts till I began to knit with ease.

The shawl is worked from the lace border to the neck and employs a really nifty edge decreasing technique and stretchy bind-off.  Ravelry details are here.

The shawl was quick and straightforward. It lost quite a bit of dye in its first wash but the rinse was clear. The blocking was easy and made a much larger shawlette than I had thought it would make as I was knitting.

Yarn gifts are most wonderfully pleasurable…in the receiving, the anticipation of planning, the knitting and the wearing. The knitter who gave me the yarn is now making her own Jagger, so the original gift has now become intertwined with that lovely mutual intimacy that friends can share in their making.