As a yarn enthusiast, I love trying new yarns when I’m able to. I enjoy the variety that’s out there and I love being able to expand the yarn selection for my customers. Not all yarn is good for the same things. I use a few brands of 100% acrylic yarn, yet some feels more scratchy and others feel divinely soft. Some colors of the same brand are more rough feeling than other colors because of the dye used. Some yarn doesn’t “drape” as well as others. These are just a few differences…..and of course, there is just some yarn out there I feel isn’t fit to be sold because the quality is so poor.
I never use any yarn brand for customer orders that I haven’t tested in some fashion. I refuse to use “inferior” yarns for my wonderful customers. I use quality, mostly budget-friendly, yarn when creating. That keeps my supply cost down which keeps your purchase price down too – all while offering a high-quality product. No one offers me money to test their products, I don’t get paid for writing any kind of review, and I don’t receive any free products to test…..it all comes out of my pocket to do this. (Though if any vendors out there would like to change any of that, I’ll happily discuss it)
That said, I stumbled upon LoveKnitting a while back on Facebook and Instagram, and recently decided to poke around their website to see what all they offer. On Instagram, I follow a bunch of lovely UK crafters, and they use yarns I haven’t seen here in the U.S….and that’s because there really aren’t any vendors here that sell those brands. I’m not sure the reason, but I found that LoveKnitting sells a variety of the brands I see the UK ladies using in their work. I have fallen in love with Stylecraft (I’m super thrilled I found a wonderful US vendor for Stylecraft! Hooray for Texas Yarn Farm!) and use it mostly for blankets (so far). I wanted to pick brands I hadn’t tried yet, and I was on a limited budget, so I chose 2 DROPS (who has fabulous patterns on their site) brands -Safran and Karisma- and a brand called King Cole’s “value” acrylic -Pricewise. I also ordered a Red Heart Anne Geddes – it was on backorder, but I just got it in today.
For this post, I want to introduce my experience with LoveKnitting as well as the basic info and first impressions of each brand of yarn. After I’ve made something with each brand, I’ll have separate posts for each brand….a yarn review, basically.
LoveKnitting. Their website is extremely user friendly, and they offer more than just yarn….but for this post I’m going to focus on my yarn shopping. After I browsed and selected the brands and colors I was going to purchase, I added them to my cart and placed my order. The whole checkout process was completely painless…they make it easy for the customer to place their order efficiently. I placed my order on Day One. Day Two I received the email that all except the Red Heart Anne Geddes was shipping out (it also ships from a different location, and my order recap at check out as well as my confirmation email told me this….so I was aware I would receive two shipments). Keep in mind, my yarn was shipping from the UK. Day Seven, a member of the LoveKnitting team emailed to notify me the Anne Geddes was on back order, for approximately a week. They gave me the choice of waiting for it or receiving a full refund, as well as a nice gesture for the inconvenience. I waited for the Anne Geddes yarn and it finally arrived today (June 1st).
The Yarn…
DROPS Safran is 100% combed cotton and is a sport weight yarn. I ordered a pink (Cerise) and cream (Off White). Initially, it has a soft feel and looks like it might have the potential to be “splitty”….meaning the strands of yarn may split apart while using it vs staying together to work as a single strand.
DROPS Karisma is 100% wool and is a DK weight yarn. I ordered a dark grey (Anthracite) and white (White). Initially, it feels surprisingly soft. Most wool I’ve felt has been more scratchy in texture, but this has a nice feel,to it….like you could make a nice peacoat or sweater and not claw your arms off.
King Cole Pricewise is 100% acrylic and is a DK weight yarn. I ordered a teal (Topaz) and cream (Oyster). Initially, it feels pretty soft, but it’s not the softest acrylic yarn I’ve felt.
Anne Geddes Baby is 80% acrylic 20% nylon and is a Red Heart sport weight yarn. I ordered the Sailboat color way which features blue/ocean green/white/tan coloring. Initially, it feels pretty soft – comparable to the feel of Stylecraft if you were to twist it tighter to mimic the width of a sport weight.
With that, I’m off to create with my new yarns…..Safran is first. Be on the look out for a moo cow in those fabulous colors!