Gorgeous Malabrigo Rastita and fun new socks!

As many knitters know, Malabrigo yarn is the one of the most beautiful and soft yarns made and I absolutely love to knit with it. The colors are so rich and luscious, which is a feast for your eyes while working with it, yet I think the warm, softness of the yarn is what I love the most about Malabrigo. I recently was sent some lovely samples from Uruguay of a new line of yarns in production by Malabrigo. The new yarn will be named Rastita, and is a sport-weight version of their Rasta yarn (bulky-weight), which came out sometime in the last year. The samples I received were variegated with short bursts of deep jewel tones. The yarn seems to be a single ply, yet it holds together well and was, as usual, a dream to knit with. Since I've been a lace shawl knitting binge,  I researched my shawl patterns and found what I thought was the perfect shawl pattern to showcase Rastita. May I present "Kudzu Shawlette" by Rachel Henry:

 

This shawl is a wonderful shape and it drapes really nicely around one's shoulders. I love the design and light lace and texture of this shawl and found that it worked very well with the variegated Rastita.

 

 I've got 2 more skeins, one in green tones and another in golds and browns. They will be knit up soon so keep an eye out here for some more Malabrigo Rastita eye candy.

Also, off the needles recently were a pair of really cool socks! I am an avid sock knitter (and teacher), but I put down my sock knitting for a while to knit shawls. When I saw the pattern Double Heelix on Knitty.com, I knew I had to have these socks. They are knit from the heel towards the toe and then stitches are picked up to knit the leg. The heel is knit with 2 colors chasing each other in a "double heelix" and it is such an interesting technique. It is not difficult, as the designer made a great video to get you started, but it is a bit tedious and I found myself spending lots of time untangling yarn as you have 4 different strand of yarn to work with! All in all, the finished socks were definitely worth the effort. I love them and they fit me great! I used some leftover yarn from my aforementioned shawl knitting: Malabrigo Sock in Ravelry Red and some Cascade Heritage yarn in grey. How do you like them? I dare you to make a pair...