I love Manos del Uruguay’s yarn. LOVE. I am slightly addicted to it. So what better way is there to treasure this yarn and showcase my love for it than to make myself a large, warm, comfy blanket of Manos that I can wrap myself in during the winter? This is also going to be a scrap blanket, using up those last little pieces of Manos that I just couldn’t bear to let languish in my stash.

I had real trouble with the terms “yarnback” and “yarn forward,” which the definitions for are not given in the pattern. The knitting dictionaries online were all making a yarn forward (yfwd) sound like a yarnover. And after fighting for a while with the pattern, wondering if a yfwd was a yarnover or it was moving the yarn to the front or the back of the work, and seeing nothing online that clarified this or described it accurately, I asked on Ravelry. Ravelers came to my rescue within minutes, and together we ascertained that in this situation, a yfwd is simply moving your “live” strand of yarn to the front of the work. Additionally, we figured out that a yarnback is literally just moving the yarn to the back of the work.

I’m using Frankie Brown’s row-by-row instructions, which really should be added to the actual pattern. I need it every time I make a corner, and in part this is necessary because I’m picking up and putting down this project so often. Update: I contacted Frankie and requested that she add those row-by-row instructions to her pattern.

I have to say, I love that every time I finish a project involving Manos, I get to pull the bag containing this blanket out of the bottom of my closet and get to work on it. It’s very slow going, but immensely satisfying as well. It’ll be wonderful to see what kind of a blanket it turns into someday.

Manos means “hands” in Spanish, which therefore means that “Manos del Uruguay” is the “Hands of Uruguay.” This cave painting shows off the hands native South Americans hundreds of thousands of years ago. Today, perhaps some of their descendants are hand-dyeing Manos yarns.