Red Heart Yarn

Disclaimer: This review is my own honest opinion of this product. I am not sponsored by, or affiliated with the manufacturer or seller of this yarn, in any way. I purchased it myself and I am not being paid, or given free gifts, in exchange for writing this review.

"I'm in love!!"

This is the first 'review' post I've done, but since this is a product that I've been DYING to try out, I think it's a good one to start with. Perhaps I'll make reviews a regular feature, we shall see.

As I said, I've been wanting to try out Red Heart for ages. A huge number of knitting/crochet YouTube channels and blogs seem to use this yarn for their tutorials/projects. I've also made a lot of various bits and bobs using their free patterns (they've got tonnes of fantastic ones on their website). 

I've been in their online shop numerous times drooling over their wares, but what had put me off ordering up until now was that they didn't have a list of shipping rates for Ireland, and I didn't want to fill up my cart with goodies only to get to the checkout and find out that shipping costs more than the actual order (I've experienced this with a lot of sites, and I really can't justify spending $30 to have a $25 order shipped) However, their website has had a complete overhaul and they now have a super clear shipping table showing the exact prices for loads of different countries. Their shipping prices are very reasonable when you consider the size of the packaging required - when you're shipping balls of yarn it's not so much the weight that'll push costs up, it's the fact that it usually has to be shipped in a box if you're ordering more than one or two balls.

Anyhoo, enough about that. One of the projects I'm currently working on is a Halloween blanket for my son (it's another Red Heart pattern, I'll link it below) and the colours used in it are orange, spring green, royal purple, grey, and black. Now, because this is an American company, their patterns use yarn in US weight terminology. Most of them use 'worsted weight' yarn, and the UK/Irish equivalent is 'aran weight'. 

This is where I usually run into problems, because if I want my project to be the correct size, I need to use the same weight yarn (or else try to work out the stitch count with different size hooks/needles and a different weight yarn, and my poor addled brain just isn't up to that challenge). 

I have two main gripes about the aran weight yarn that's available in Ireland:

1. When it comes to variety of colours, pickings are pretty slim - if you want traditional 'tweedy' type colours, or baby colours, then you're grand. If you're looking for bold, vibrant, funky colours then you'll find it difficult to find something to suit. 
2. The yarn thickness is massively inconsistent - I've found the thickness varies hugely depending on the brand you use. I've also found that even within the same brand, certain colours are WAY thinner than others. (this was particularly problematic when I was making my stitch-cation afghan, some of the yarns which were aran yarns were as thin as a lot of double knit yarns)

So with those two things in mind, I bit the bullet, and ordered the yarn for the blanket from Red Heart. The estimated shipping time was something like 20 working days, so I was a little concerned that I'd be under the gun to get it finished in time for Halloween but it actually arrived in about a fortnight, so I was pleasantly surprised.

Now, if it's not already evident from what I've written so far, I had very high hopes for this yarn, so I was almost nervous opening the box because if it didn't live up to my expectations I'd have been devastated! 

Well, let me tell you, I was not disappointed. I can honestly say that this is, hands down, THE BEST YARN that I've ever worked with. The yarn weight and thickness is consistent throughout all the balls. The colours are beautiful (especially the purple, oh my God, the purple). It's a good sturdy yarn, exactly what an aran weight yarn should be. It's just a dream come true, right down to the little details, like how on each one of the yarn skeins there's a centre-pull and at the other you can pull from the outside, whichever you prefer (I'm a centre-pull gal, myself) and there's a handy dandy guide on the wrapper to tell you which end is which. There's also a free pattern on the reverse of the wrapper.

"idiot-proof yarn band"

So in case there was any doubt, my rating of this yarn is two very enthusiastic thumbs up. In fact if I was some sort of mutant and had extra thumbs, I'd be putting them up, too. Seriously. I know I sound like a broken record but I actually can't get over how much I love this yarn. If I wasn't already married, I'd be putting the moves on it (providing there isn't some sort of law preventing that sort of thing). It goes without saying that I'll be buying more of this, I'm planning my Christmas gifts so will likely be purchasing the supplies for those in the coming weeks. Hooray!!

Oh, in case anyone is wondering, the other yarns pictured in the top photo are Lion Brand Yarns. I'm making a poncho for my sister using those. So far, I'm liking them a lot. Hopefully I'll do another review when I've gotten further along with the poncho and have a better feel for how they are to work with.

Yarns I bought:

Red Heart Super Saver in:

Shade 312 - Black (2 skeins)

Shade 356 - Amethyst (1 skein)

Shade 254 - Pumpkin (2 skeins)

Shade 672 - Spring Green (1 skein)

Shade 400 - Grey Heather (1 skein)

Halloween blanket pattern: Pumpkin Face Throw

Knitpix 2014.....Now With Added Crochet Goodness!

image credit

Greetings and Happy New Year to you all!

Once again, I have been absent for the world of the blog for many weeks, however they were not fruitless weeks, oh no! They were weeks filled with crafting festive gifts for those I love, so I've got lots of lovely things to post about on here in the coming weeks. Hurrah! 

In a change from my gifts last year, this year's lot were crocheted. I only learned how to crochet very recently. It was something I'd always wanted to do, but could just never get my head around how it worked. One of the reasons for this - I think - is because of the way I knit; I'm a thrower. "A what?", I hear you ask, I'm a thrower. That means that when I knit I hold my yarn in my right hand and it's my right hand that loops or 'throws' the yarn around the needle. This is also known as 'right hand knitting' or 'English knitting'. 

In crochet you hold your yarn with your left hand, and your hand movements are more similar to 'left hand' or 'Continental' knitting, so for those that use the continental knitting method it's not such a huge jump to crochet, because you're already used to holding your yarn and controlling your tension with your left hand.

I'd tried to learn how to knit continental style before and it was a complete disaster, much the same way my previous attempts to crochet went, however one of the main reasons I wanted to learn crochet was that you can make any size project you want; you're not limited to the length of your needles the way you are in knitting. 

Just after my son was born I made a massive blanket for him, it's 150cm x 150cm, and the trouble I had trying to get a circular needle to accommodate a project that size was unbelievable. The longest one I've been able to find is 180cm long and 4.5mm thick. Once you start getting into bigger thicknesses it's impossible to find a cable that long, also if you've got a piece of work that has 500 odd stitches in a row and you suddenly find you've made a mistake and have to rip it out, you'll pretty much lose the will to live because on projects that size a single row can take up to 40 mins to knit.

So with that in mind, I went and bought a set of 5 chunky crochet hooks and a book on how to crochet. First and foremost I'm going to say that, aside from containing some lovely patterns to get me inspired to learn, the book was largely useless as far as teaching goes, so I did what I always do in times of craft related confusion - I checked YouTube! 

Now there are millions of videos on how to crochet on YouTube, in fact there are also videos on how to perform colonic irrigation on your self (don't ask) but after looking through a few of them I found a great one from Staci on VeryPink.com which was part of a series she did called 'Crochet for Knitters'. After watching a couple of her videos it was like a light went on in my brain and suddenly I could crochet along, too!! Huzzah!!

That was back at the end of September and since then I've made lots of crocheted projects, and at the risk of making an utterly, utterly dreadful pun, when it comes to crochet you could say I'm 'hooked' (cue laugh reel). I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. 

There are a few things I really like about crochet in comparison to knitting, the main thing being that you work takes shape so much faster, I could finish a crochet hat in about one hour whereas it might take me a whole afternoon or more to knit the same thing. Also, if you set your work down and it starts to unravel, it's not catastrophic the same way it would be with a knitted piece, since each crochet stitch is 'closed' before you move on to the next. 

That being said, I've found that some projects just don't work as well in crochet as they do in knitting - for example I recently crocheted a sock which turned out grand, only it's not really something you'd realistically wear - it's insanely thick, and the nature of crochet stitches mean it's not quite as smooth as a knitted sock would be.

All in all, I love crochet and I'm so glad I finally got the hang of it, but I'll never give up the knitting - I'll just have a wider range of projects to choose from in the future. So for any of my fellow knitters out there who are considering learning a new skill, I'd definitely say go for it, you won't regret it! And if anyone's interested, I'll list my favourite YouTube crochet channels below.

VeryPink Knits

The Crochet Crowd

Crochet Geek

YarnYard

nerdigurumi

Ruffled Fancy Scarf

Just a quick update on one of the things I'm currently knitting. I was out shopping (at Springwools) for some wool for a scarf for my godmother the other day when my beady eyes fell upon this gorgeous yarn! 

I've never knitted with it before, but from what I can see it's very similar to the Rico Loopy yarn, but a bit thinner. I'm a complete sucker for anything brightly coloured or shiny, so naturally my eye was drawn to this. There were a huge variety of colours on offer, but I went for this one because I loved the way the colours transitioned into one another (especially the gold into the pink; it reminds me of a sunset!).

I've started the scarf (a little gift from me, to me) and at the point of writing this I've knitted about 10 inches or so.

I'll post an updated entry when it's done, along with some pictures of the finished scarf and my thoughts on the wool and the knitting process.

Dogs need jumpers too......right?

Ok, so anyone who knows me will know that I'm certainly not opposed to dressing my dogs in fabulous jumpers. Some people (namely my husband and my father) may argue that said jumpers are ridiculous, however I vehemently disagree. Some dogs are very style conscious, and just love to look their best, well, either that or they're too passive to bother trying to chew their outfits off. 

My Cocker Spaniel, Bella, already has a variety of jumpers, a coat, and a bathrobe (laugh all you want, that thing is damn handy when she's just had a bath and is soaked). Last August, we acquired a new canine friend in the form of Lola, a half labrador - half bulldog, and she's grown up to be quite large, so there's just no way she and Bella will be able to share outfits. To that end, I went on Amazon and purchased the book above, so I can knit her a funky sweater. I ordered it today, so I can't wait for it to arrive! It'll be a nice side project to my log cabin blanket, and doubtless my husband will have hours of fun slagging me about knitting for dogs, so really it'll benefit the whole family!