Friday, November 30, 2007

Ironstone Colorchanges: Yarn in Review

In brief - I love this yarn.

Vital stats:

53% wool, 47% acrylic

100 yards

50 grams

Recommended gauge is 10 st = 3" with a #11 needle. I've been knitting hats and mittens with it on size 6 dpns. It makes a nice dense fabric, but not too stiff. I haven't tried washing it, so who knows? Maybe it poofs way out once washed.

Handwash in cool water or dry clean.

I keep finding good things about it. Sorry I keep comparing it to Noro Kureyon. I love Noro, and this yarn looks a lot like it on the shelf.

1. It's not very expensive - about $6 (US) per ball.

2. It stripes like Noro Kureyon - the color changes may be slightly shorter than Noro, but it has the same gradual blend effect.

3. It is not (very) itchy.

4. NO GRASS.

5. Easy to hand-wind. For Knitters Without Winders, this is a great feature. The yarn comes as a loose ball, which is fine, but I was looking for the color repeat, so I have wound 4 balls of this by hand recently. It has not tangled. Not once. Awesome.

6. It is spun more consistently than Noro Kureyon - same springy single-strand worsted spin (someone correct me if I am not using the term worsted correctly in relation to how yarn is spun).

Anything I don't like?

1. It doesn't break because of the acrylic content. Slightly inconvenient, but I can live with it.

2. Either the color pattern doesn't repeat, or the repeat is over 300 yards long, because I wasn't able to find the repeat after hand-winding three balls of yarn. (I was trying to match the Mumma Smittens.)

Bottom line: Would I buy this again?

I would. Especially if I see it on sale! One ball is enough for a pair of kid mittens, two makes adult mittens.

5 comments:

Celena said...

i'm gonna have to get my hands on some of that yarn. sounds great!

Anonymous said...

OOOh! This yarn sounds nice, unfortunately I don't think I am going to be able to get any of it by midnight, which is when my self imposed yarn diet goes into effect. Though it I ordered it online it would still have been purchased before December first...

It sounds like a great alternative to Noro. I love how Noro looks but touch it and lose the love. Is it less harsh feeling than Noro?

knitseashore said...

I love a good yarn with no grass!

Cari said...

No grass is a definite improvement over Noro

Fiber Chic said...

Knitters Without Winders--I love that! I'm a Knitter Without a Winder as well...We should make a group on Ravelry (just a silly one) and call it KWW--we could share tips on how we wind our yarn...I just realizaed how weird this sounds. I'll be quiet now.