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

Stitch-cation Super Afghan Challenge

Greetings readers! Once again, I have been absent for a while, however I have not been idle, oh no! I've been churning out projects by the barrel-full so I should have plenty of posts coming up with the various things I've made.

Today's post is about my first ever full size crochet afghan/blanket. I made it for the Stitch-cation Challenge on the The Crochet Crowd.com. If you haven't visited their site, I'd really recommend you check them out, it's like a massive community/encyclopedia/educational resource all mashed in to one, and it's AWESOME! They run challenges all the time - you can see details of current and previous challenges on the site - but this is the first one I've actually participated in. 

I started it on the 3rd of July and honestly, I was doubtful I would get it finished in time for the September 1st deadline. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it actually came together quite quickly, I think that was due to the fact that it's made up of smaller squares so you don't end up with this behemoth of a project where it gets to the point that one row can take almost an hour to do. With some of the squares I would finish a whole one in an evening, while watching TV.

This project consisted of squares, each made of one of the following 10 stitch patterns:

Popcorn Stitch
Back Loops Stitch
Cross Stitch
Double Crochet & Slip Stitch
Front Post Double Around Single Crochet
Front Post Double Crochet
Front Post Treble Crochet
Granny Square
Raised Trebles
Front Post Double Crochet With Shells 

You had to make two of each square. I decided to do one out of each pair in a solid colour, and the other in mixed colours. The rules were that you had to use a minimum of 8 colours, and that your border had to have a minimum of 4 rows. I'll list the colours I used in the blanket at the bottom of this post. The border I made had 9 or 10 rows. The border pattern I used was from the Red Heart Holiday Striped Throw, I just changed the order of the colours so that it would suit the layout I wanted.

The instruction e-book said that the aim of the project was to learn more about how to use different stitch types and I definitely learned lots! In fact there are quite a few of these stitches that I've got in mind for future projects. Getting the hang of the patterns was easier than I thought, and there were the step-by-step YouTube tutorials to fall back on if I got stuck. Probably the most difficult bit of the entire thing was trying to decide the placement of the different squares. I must have done at least 10 different arrangements before I was happy enough to crochet them all together. 

The border did take a while, and was slightly awkward because the blanket was fairly big by that stage. Working on it induced a mild form of heat stroke because it was covering my lap while I crocheted around the edges, although at least I know it's going to be nice and warm when the colder weather rolls around. In fairness, although it was a bit of a slog getting around the whole border, it wasn't as tedious as it could have been because I was so excited that it was getting closer to being finished (although I did almost have a nervous breakdown when I had to rip out nearly an entire round because I messed up) Then FINALLY on the 19th of August, I finished weaving in my ends and........TAH DAH!!

I'm delighted with how it turned out! I love all the different colours and textures, and it definitely has given me a wider range of options for other projects in the future. Not saying I'm going to be starting another one of these blankets next week, but I wouldn't rule it out for the future. A lighter weight yarn and lower gauge hook (this was made with Aran weight yarn and a 5mm hook) would make a smaller blanket that would be great for kids or a new baby.

Here's the list of the colours I used, and where I got them:

Pink: King Cole Bounty Aran Shade 133 (from Springwools)

Purple: King Cole Bounty Aran Shade 117 (from Springwools)

Tan/Wheat: King Cole Bounty Aran Shade 113 (from Springwools)

Baby Blue: Robin Bonny Babe Aran Shade 1877 (from Springwools)

Yellow: Tivoli Eurospun Blockbuster Double Knit Shade 566 (from Springwools)*

Grey: King Cole Comfort Aran Shade 313 (from Springwools)

Green: King Cole Comfort Aran Shade 319 (from Springwools)

Mint: Stylecraft Baby Aran Shade 1234 (from Home Focus at Hickeys)

Cream border colour: Stylecraft Baby Aran Shade 1245 (from Home Focus at Hickeys)

*I'm aware the yellow is actually double knit wool, however it was actually the same thickness as the aran wools I used. The aran version of the Eurospun Blockbuster was more like a chunky weight, and would have been too thick for the project.