Yarn Review: Amigurumi + Exciting News

Can you guess what these are?

This next photo has a clue:

They are the bees’ knees!   

Not just one bee, but two, all thanks to Red Heart Amigurumi yarn, distributed in Australia by Melbourne-based business American Yarns.

I’m very excited to announce collaboration with Pauline and her team at American Yarns who sent me some Red Heart Amigurumi yarn to review.  While I am being remunerated for providing this review, my opinions expressed here remain independent and honest.

Red Heart Amigurumi
'Bumble Bee' & 'Mermaid'

RedHeart’s Amigurumi is a super fine (CYC #1*), 100% acrylic especially designed for projects needing small amounts of yarn in each colour like toys and amigurumi.  Each 100 gram ‘cake’ consists of 4 solid colour blocks with 25 g (54.6 metres) of each colour. Use it as a self-striping yarn for colour blocked projects or use each colour separately. It’s like 4 mini-skeins in one!

Amigurumi is convenient for collecting different colours in small amounts and if you need confidence combining colours, the work has all been done for you in one skein. The ‘cakes’ were surprisingly flat– all the better to see all the colours (and easier to post).  One skein of every colour variety would give you around 20 different colours.

The 'cakes' were very flat.

My first impression of the yarn was amazement – it felt so soft!  It is much easier on the hands than 4-ply cottons which don’t have as much ‘give’.  If you have been avoiding amigurumi projects because cotton is too tight or rough, Amigurumi might be your perfect alternative.

I wonder whether this yarn is aimed at younger people because I had a lot of trouble with the teeny tiny writing on the label. Even with my reading glasses, I had to reach for my magnifying glass as well. This probably tells you more about my failing eyesight than the product! 

I suppose crocheters who make tiny amigurumi projects in fine yarn can also read small text however I was impressed that it was multi-lingual (English, French and Spanish). All the necessary technical information is there including lot numbers.  (I am very dubious of yarns that do not have lot numbers.)

The team at American Yarns are yarn crafters themselves. They know the importance of matching dye lots when preparing your orders.  I received 2 skeins of ‘Bumble Bee’ and 1 skein of ‘Mermaid’ to try.  For each colour variety, Red Heart provides a free amigurumi pattern in either knit or crochet on its website. Guess which ones I chose (crochet of course)!

Each cake has ample yarn to make two amigurumi toys. The catchphrase is “each one makes two.”  I made two bumble bees per the pattern and I reckon I could get a third bee out of the remaining yarn.

'Henry & Honey Bumblebee'
Pattern designed by Michelle Wilcox and published by Red Heart 2018
Crocheted by Jodiebodie!

This is the first time I’ve ever used a 4-ply weight yarn in acrylic because most Australian shops only stock 4-ply weights in cotton or wool.  This is part of the reason Pauline, a fellow crocheter, started American Yarns – to make these yarns available in Australia and give Australian yarn crafters more choice, especially those with allergies to natural fibres.

The softness of this yarn was quite surprising for an acrylic. It’s loose, triple-plied acrylic fibres made it ‘lofty’. When pulling the yarn through stitches, it became thinner under tension but when the stitch was done, the fibres sprung back to their original thickness, covering up any gaps in the stitches, making the fabric more solid – perfect for preventing the stuffing from leaking out of toys etc.  I didn’t need to crochet as tightly as I was used to doing with fine cottons and my hands were happier.

My tension square used the ‘silver’ yarn. It’s smooth sheen slips nicely through stitches and from the hook – once my tension was correct.

At first, I got very frustrated because the yarn kept splitting – partly because my hands weren’t used to working acrylic with my thin steel hook so my tension was too tight, and partly because of the loose, S-twist of the yarn. 

I find that S-twisted yarns have a tendency to untwist with my crochet action.  I was hoping that a yarn especially designed for amigurumi would have a Z-twist.  This attribute might explain why each Amigurumi label depicted a knit ‘serving suggestion’ and not a crocheted one. I suspect this yarn is better suited to knitters than crocheters.

I also need to find a different hook. Red Heart’s free pattern recommends a 2.75 mm (US C-2) Susan Bates hook which is American (naturally).  I do not have one of those.  My hook was a 2.75 mm Boye anodised steel hook.

In the past I have come across online tribal debates comparing Boye versus Susan Bates.  If you have used either of these hooks, I’d love you to clarify: what are their pros and cons, which do you prefer and why, what’s the difference?

My Boye anodised hook occasionally caught fibres which split the yarn on the pulling through of the last two loops (of each stitch).  This was resolved by slowing down my final ‘pull-throughs’ and only pulling through one loop at a time instead of two.  Perhaps an in-line hook is better suited.  My bamboo hook’s head was the same diameter as the shaft but the mouth of it was too small and sharp for the lofty acrylic.  The acrylic did not slip as smoothly from the ‘grippy’ bamboo hook either.

Good news – American Yarns stocks both Boye and Susan Bates brands including in-line hooks. Put those on the list!

Be careful ripping back mistakes with Amigurumi.  Go slowly! It was mostly a smooth process but, because of my hook’s tendency to split the yarn, affected stitches would knot easily during ‘frogging’. Fortunately, scissors were unnecessary but they came close!

Reasons to recommend Amigurumi:

• softness
• colour variety
• affordability
• easy on hands because it’s lofty nature
  allows a looser working tension
  while maintaining a solid fabric
• neither scratchy nor allergenic as wool
• softer than many other acrylics on the market
• good for knitters

To find out more about Red Heart yarns in Australia (along with other leading American Brands) contact the team at their online shop, American Yarns, Melbourne, Australia: www.americanyarns.com.au

Your thoughts on Amigurumi?

Any preferences: Boye vs. Susan Bates?

Do share in the comments below.

Links

American Yarns, online shop: www.americanyarns.com.au

Red Heart Amigurumi yarn: https://www.americanyarns.com.au/product/red-heart-amigurumi-yarn/

Red Heart, Henry & Honey Bumblebee, free pattern LM6290: https://www.redheart.com/free-patterns/henry-and-honey-bumblebee

*Craft Yarn Council Standard Yarn Weight System: https://www.craftyarncouncil.com/standards/yarn-weight-system; Craft Yarn Council Yarn Standards www.YarnStandards.com; Craft Yarn Council, 3740 N. Josey Lane, Suite 152, Carrollton, TX 75007