My shopping cart
Your cart is currently empty.
Continue ShoppingHappy Monday Everyone! It's a bit cooler here today, which is perfect timing.
This weekend, I had the pleasure of taking a bit of time on the back deck to do a deep dive into Berroco's new fall yarns. I'll tell you, it was a lovely time, and the yarns are beautiful.
This week, I'm going to do a series of blog posts about each one. I know the online world is strange, and hard to wrap your head around a tactical thing like yarn without being able to touch it, so I will do my best, and be as descriptive as possible.
Today I am going to start with Carousel. (First thought, fun name)
So the colours are lovely, they all remind me of crushed up colourful candy, and you'll see why when you get to the photos of the samples I made.
So first things first.
Yarn Info, the details we all need to know (the basics)
The balls are 100 g and are 418 yds / 380 m (great value for the amount of yarn)
24-27 sts and 32-34 rows = 4" (10 cm) This gauge is with 3.5-4 mm hook or needle.
The blend on this is perfect for accessories and easy care sweaters: 52% Wool, 48% Acrylic
Care Instructions are pretty manageable: Machine wash in cold water on delicate cycle. Lay flat to dry.
Let's talk about all the fun colours!
Bottle Sand, Dunk Tank, Ring Toss, Ladder Climb, Skee-ball, Bingo, Duck Pond, and Darts. The theme is fun, and the Carousel makes more sense now, it's fall fair season right around the corner after all. I can't decide which one I love the most, but they are all really fun, and I think the range is nice.
So what would you make with it?
I was happy to see both knit and crochet options in the pattern support for this yarn. I also enjoy that some patterns use aerial for a fuzzy option as well (this isn't my thing, since I'm horribly allergic to mohair, and would be a hive covered mess. But that's a me issue, and isn't a mohair issue)
The patterns suit the yarn beautifully I think: Here are the most currently available ones:
Gatti (Made with 2 balls of Ring Toss)
Super cute, and I love a good ripple stitch of any type.
Tyanna (Made with 1 ball of Bingo)
This is by far my favourite, it's one ball, it's the perfect fall accessory, and makes a perfect Christmas gift for anyone, an easy knit, that would go fairly quickly.
Feki (Made with 4-7 balls of yarn)
I love how size inclusive this sweater is, the size range is: (36½, 40, 44½) [48, 52½, 56, 60½] {64, 68½, 72}
There are 3 other patterns available on Berroco's website, but I wanted to just highlight some here.
So what's it like to work with? We get asked this alot about new yarns fairly often, so here's my two cents...
I knit my sample with a 3.75mm needle, I was a bit worried about splitting because for ply construction of the yarn, with so many colours throughout. But I put it through it's paces. I did two types of increases (yo's and kfb's) and it was great, it knit easily in stockinette, then I worked two types of decreases (k2togs, and ssk's) and again easily handled it with no splitting at all.
This was my sample, I knit it corner to corner to see what the stripes would do that way and work in the increases and decreases, I also did a few rows of garter to see what the stitch definition would look like.
It felt good. It feels something in between a sock yarn and let's say something like Vintage. Obviously the twist on it is different, but that's as close to a description as I can get. It was a nice yarn to work with, and the colours entertained the entire time.
When it came time to crochet, I used a 3.5mm hook, no splitting, which was great, and it made the colours shine even more.
a simple granny square did the trick.
Overall, I think this is going to be a great fall favourite. Easily can be used for 1 ball projects, it's great for sweaters, and honestly, I'm excited to make a
"Nightshift" out of this, but I have to decide on which colour...
This yarn arrives next week, we've enabled ordering on the website, but with full transparency, it wouldn't ship until mid next week (we don't want to set false expectations)
This is the link to the product
https://www.aberdeenswool.ca/products/carousel?_pos=1&_sid=f90ca4b8e&_ss=r
Stay tuned the rest of the week for more fall yarns...tomorrow is Talara!
Claudette
Aug 29, 2023
Any suggestion about Carousel for men? And congrats for getting on top of things with the new yarn.