Review - Hometown USA from Lion Brand Yarn

I've done a half-dozen hats with this yarn and it's time to give a review. Hometown USA is a super bulky yarn found at craft stores.

It's 100% acrylic... which is ideal for me and mine - due to wool allergies and being easy care.

I LOVE the colors. I LOVE the price. And I LOVE the softness of the yarn. I do. It's a reasonably priced yarn and it's a joy to work with albeit with the typical non-stretchy nature of all 100% acrylic yarns.

I'm only slightly disappointed that the skeins are a little small - only 81 yards per skein which isn't quite enough for two of my Brioche hats.

BUT, there's a caveat. I've twice come across a skein where there had been an issue. The first one simply had a single ply out of several that had broken. I just made sure that I lined up that strand and knit it with it's partners and trimmed the ever so slight little ends that poked out. No big deal. Then the second skein that had an issue had fluff plied in with the plies, broken plies, pieces of fluff just 'stuck' to the plied yarn... I thought about cutting out the three to four yards of bad yarn... but with super bulky it's a pain dealing with working in ends... instead I pulled out the loose fluff, did the best I could with broken plies within that section and just kept going. It's in a crocheted hat, with lots of double-crochet, so the issue is really not that noticeable. But if it had been in a knit stockinette section? I wouldn't have had a choice but to cut it out as it would have looked horrible. Both of these issues were not visible from the outside of the skein... and if it had just been a broken ply? I wouldn't have cared. But the second skein was pretty messed up. If I continue to use this yarn and continue to find these issues? I would probably stop buying this yarn.

In the meantime, it's the only super-bulky, 100% acrylic yarn with a smooth ply that is affordable for a lot of my charity knitting, so I'm still planning on continuing to buy it and use it for those purposes.

The sad thing was that I was looking for something just like this to make an afghan... and my son was asking for a super-soft super bulky wear-around-the-house sweater for next winter... due to the issues and the small skeins? I don't want to buy a couple of dozen skeins for a big project and risk it. So, I'm still on the search for a replacement for the Wool-ease that I can no longer use.

FYI - no one is offering me anything for this review. I have not received anything free nor been paid for offering my opinion.

Red Heart, with Love

So, my latest FO, a scarf that is a Christmas gift.... was made with Red Heart with Love yarn.  It was presented to me as an alternative to the yarn-that-is-not-to-be-named.

The other yarn runs around $3.65 for about 350 yards.
The Red Heart yarn is around $5.00 for about 370 yards.

The other yarn comes in almost a hundred colors.
The Red Heart yarn comes in about a dozen colors.

The other yarn is softer, and has a better all-over-evenness to the yarn that isn't BAD in Red Heart, but isn't quite as good quality-wise. If I ranked the first yarn as an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10 in quality; this one is closer to a 7.

But, it is a good 'almost' alternative. And it would be better if they came out with more colors. When it boils down to all else? The limited color options is probably the biggest detriment to me.

I absolutely LOVE that it's made in the US and for the price difference, I'm ok with the barely higher price if it's going towards American workers.

Now, most Red Heart yarns soften with the wash. So, I'm hoping a trip through the washer and dryer will help take this scarf to the next level of softness.

All-in-all? I will use it again... but it probably will be when I need something I can go and pick up quickly (as opposed to ordering on-line or special ordering through an LYS) and when the color matters very little.

Next Years big projects - blankets and making them affordable

While I'm looking at my big projects for next year... I'm also looking at affordable yarn buying options AS WELL AS keeping an eye toward working with buying yarn from a dear friend who just opened up a new LYS in town.

She's been kind enough to offer to special order for me 'big' orders as well as offering a discount on big orders... and I'd love to do my shopping there all the time... but let's face it. Her wool collection has to be larger than her non-wool offerings for sale - that's just common sense. But she is trying to make sure she offers me options as well (which is VERY kind and considerate). So I do want to repay her kindness.

Generally speaking, if she's going to order yarn for me (in bulk) she'll have to get on average 10 skeins of yarn for each color ordered.

So, first out of the gate, one of the blankets I'm planning to make next year only needs 2 skeins of 5 colors and 7 skeins of a 6th color. If she already had in stock the colors I needed, I wouldn't feel bad asking her to order the sixth color in a larger batch for me. BUT she doesn't. I'm looking for rainbow-color-bright with black as the sixth color. I don't think it's fair for me to ask her to order five other colors if I'm only going to want 2 of the 10 skeins from each package as then she has to have someone else around who is going to want to make something in your face BRIGHT.

But, another project I'm thinking about making requires 15-18 skeins of the same color. THAT one I think I should order through her - she'll get to sell most of the order immediately and I wouldn't worry as much about the few skeins I wasn't using being sold as I will be picking a much more muted/in style tone of color.

But let's look at pricing (not including tax - simplify my math).

At the LYS - I can get about 250 yards/skein for $5.40 - but my LYS owner now hopes someone else wants to make a rainbow in your face BRIGHT blanket
At Knitpicks - I can get about 220 yards/skein for $3.00.
At the hobby shop - I can get about 350 yards/skein for $5.00.

For the 6-color blanket - I need about 400 yards for each of the first five colors and 1700 yards for the sixth color.

Knitpicks - 17 skeins - $51.00
Hobby Shop - $75.00 (2 less skeins for the sixth color)

In this scenario - Knitpicks is going to get my order because I can't get away with only one skein of the hobby shop yarn - I'd have to buy two to get 400 yards; which ends up costing me more in the end.

For the 1-color blanket - I need about 3600 yards.
At the LYS - if I order 16 skeins (to ensure enough yarn) $86.40
At Knitpicks - 18 skeins - $54.00
At hobby shop - $60.00

In this scenario - I'm still tempted to buy yarn at the LYS. Yes, I could save about $30 at knitpicks, but the LYS yarn is EVERY bit as nice, if not a bit nicer to work with AND I get to figure that a good portion of that difference is money that is staying in my local economy.

AND yes, I'm fully aware I can buy blankets cheaper at Walmart. This isn't about the end result blanket. It's about finding ways to invest in my hobby, make something beautiful and not go broke while doing it.

Cyber Monday Yarn Shopping

Quite a few online stores are having cyber Monday sales today. Quite a lot of them are offering 25% off or 30% off or even 40% off.

But so far? The deal that I couldn't resist?

Knitpicks.com

Select yarn and tools are 50% off. And their prices are usually very reasonable to start with.

I had at one point two sweaters-worth quantity of yarn in my shopping cart. But only one of the yarns was at 50% off. So, I ended up deciding to move the non-sale priced yarn into my wish list instead.

So what did I get? I got enough sport-weight baby alpaca in a Heathered Indigo to make a sweater. Easily $150 worth of yarn (bought elsewhere); worth $100 at Knitpicks not on sale;  for $49.50.