Prize winner’s product review + star pattern

Our friend, A Creative Pixie, has kindly reviewed the Red Heart Miami yarn she won in a recent giveaway. Just look at what she made! LOVELOVELOVE!

Click here to visit her blog and to read the review!

She has even been generous enough to post the pattern she used too.

It’s worth noting that we didn’t actually want to send the yarn to her because it’s so yummy 😛 That rich colour … it makes us happy just looking at it!

Thank you, A Creative Pixie!

Product Review(s)

Red Heart Soft – I cannot tell you how much I love this yarn! It’s soft, thick, sturdy, no fraying and really fast to work with. LOVE!

Red Heart Lacie – If you like mohair-type yarn, you might like this. One of us doesn’t, the other does. It’s very soft, very dainty but as fly-away as you’d expect. Lovely colour. Beautiful texture.

Product review – Giveaway winner reports!

The winner of our first giveaway was Judit from MonsterYarns. She won a set of circular knitting needles and has sent us her review below :> Her review is all her own opinion and first appeared on her own blog with photos here. Reproduced with permission.

Thank you for taking the time to review for us, Judit!

 

I knit a lot in public and on public transport. By necessity therefore I use circular needles to make sure that I don’t prod anyone sitting near me and attract even more weird looks than I normally do. So when UK Crochet Patterns ran a quick competition to win a circular knitting needle from part of the goodie parcel delivered from Red Heart , I jumped at the chance.

I don’t win competitions that often so I was thrilled to add to my collection of needles – especially gratis!

My first impressions were of a good but basic quality of needle – the type where what you see is what you get. Unwrapping it however there were a couple of very pleasant surprises – nice tip on the needle and the coil is fantastic. Just the right amount of stiffness so that it doesn’t kink but not too hard so your work “floats” uncomfortably in front of you.

The needles have a clever curve a few centimetres from the join.

Clever because the perennial problem with any circular needles is snagging on the join between the tip and the coil. The curve is meant to ensure that the knitting feeds in a straight line on to the coil. And it does. Clever.

What doesn’t quite work with these circulars is the join itself. Hopefully you can see in this photo that the edge of the needle is a lot wider than the coil and a little sharp. It’s aluminium after all.

So the end result is snagging.

This is not unusual in circulars but incredibly frustrating. There are a circular needles which solve this problem, no doubt through exacting engineering, and as a result tend to be on the expensive end of the range.

So my opinion – good basic circular, perhaps for when you’re travelling and you don’t want to carry your prized expensive ones, but watch out for the snagging!

Thank you Red Heart and UK Crochet Patterns.

 

 

Product Review – Red Heart yarn, “Detroit”

After the less than favourable review of Red Heart yarn last time, I am happy to say that we LOVED the second yarn we tried – “Detroit“. It is thick and soft and pliable, no fraying or wandering strands, and the richness of the colour is deep and comforting. We crocheted a big rectangle which was promptly adopted as a bed by The Fussiest Cat In The Universe – praise indeed!

As with last time, this is our opinion and Red Heart sent us the yarn without strings attached.

Product review – RedHeart yarn

Now, obviously when Red Heart sent us a bunch of freebies, part of the deal was for us to talk about them on here. We don’t mind! Please note that the opinions are our own and they haven’t recompensed us in any way for our post, other than sending us the freebies in the first place. We will be totally honest!

One of the yarns they sent us is called “Niki“.  It’s 80% acrylic, 20% wool. It’s the dark blue yarn in the top left in this picture (just right for a Tardis!). One of us loves it, the other not so much. It’s very thready. That is, the strands come apart very easily while you’re working with it and once it’s done, it frays really easily. I made a hat with it (a Tardis hat :P) and while the person its intended for will love it, I’m not over excited with how messy the fraying has made the hat look. Tufty and strandy (is that a word?). I was going to sell it in my online shop but the fraying has prevented that.

That said, the other one of us loves the fraying! The colour is beautiful – rich and dark. The ball was 50g in weight. I made an entire adult beanie hat from it with a good amount to spare. You could probably get two children’s beanies from it.

To sum up: one of us would use it again, one wouldn’t. :>

You can find it here on the Red Heart website.

Now, the next yarn I’m going to work with from Red Heart looks totes amazing – it’s thick, not a frayer and is just the right colour for a facehugger hat, something I’ve been planning for ages! Will be back with a review soon!

First person to “like” this post receives …

… one of the circular knitting needles we were sent by redheart.co.uk

The only condition is that you give it a try and let us all know what you think!!

GO!

:>>>

Red Heart goodies have arrived!

Ooooohhhh, how exciting! We’ve got knitting needles, yarn, a cute tape measure and a giant bag. We’ll be reviewing everything individually, plus sharing these goodies with YOU!

My boyfriend, however, was more interested in the box.