The third and final skein of yarn I received in my press kit is Alpaca Love. This yarn is a worsted weight yarn that is comprised of 80% wool and 20% alpaca. It is a plied yarn that comes in 131 yard center pull machine wound skeins. It comes in eight pretty nice colors I like the Espresso brown and the Peacock Feather teal colors. My sample was the green color Fern. The website says that the yarn adds a “touch of luxury” to any project. I decided to test out this yarn by creating a one skein project. I decided that I wanted to try to make a pair of socks. The yardage is a little small to make a full size adult pair of socks so I went with a child’s size hoping to make a pair of inside or house socks. I know that my niece likes to wear socks to bed and around the house because of the hardwood floors are cold in the mornings.
So I wound the skein in advance and despite a small yarn barf it was very consistent with no knots, joins, slubs, or fuzz balls. I used the 5 Stitch per Inch Socks by Ann Budd from Getting Started Knitting Socks by Ann Budd to knit the socks on size 7 bamboo dpns. The knitting went very quickly and I was happy with the way the ribbing and stockinette came out. Both were smooth and consistent which is nice, the ribbing has a nice stretch but sprang back to without stretching. The socks had very little fuzz and the yarn was pretty soft. It is not as soft as the bamboo but not as stiff as full wool.
When my socks were done I washed them. I didn’t see any dye in the water but I did notice a wet dog smell from the socks which were gone when the socks dried. It wasn’t overwhelming but it was there. The socks seemed to take a long time to dry which I am not sure whether this was the yarn or the weather but it wasn’t a major issue. I gave Jazzy the socks to try on after I washed them so that I could take a picture of them. She liked the way they felt she said that was soft and smooth but she thought the color was for boys! I don’t know how well alpaca kid’s socks will wear but they sure looked and felt pretty good. I could see this yarn being used for winter outer wear such as warm snuggly cowl and slouchy berets. Just like Bamboo Ewe and Full O’ Sheep Alpaca Love a nice yarn at a good price in great modern colors. I have to say my favorite of the three was the Full O’ Sheep. I would love to make a Fair Isle yoke sweater out of it. (Hey Coats kick me the yarn.)
The only thing I would have to say about the yarn line is that it annoys me that it is only available at Joann’s which is not technically a yarn or even a craft store. I would have liked to seen this yarn at some other places such as craft stores or the major online yarn stores. I think it should be more widely available. Next time I check in with Stitch Nation I want to take a look at the pattern support.
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