Easy Care Merino Yarn Review

Looking for an easy to use merino yarn with a tweedy option?  Easy Care Merino is a 100% Merino yarn from Hobbii.  Read on to find out more about this yarn and if it’s right for your next project.

Why Easy Care Merino?

I am a huge fan of natural fibres and am a sucker for a deal.  I have been eyeing up the Easy Care Merino by Mayflower on the Hobbii website since it appeared pretty much.  However, I try to limit my budget and spending and only recently finally indulged in a couple of skeins of this yarn.  The reason is, there is an Easy Care Tweed version of this yarn, and it was on super deals with another yarn I really wanted to try.

I grabbed a couple of skeins and have finished one project with the Easy Care Tweed and am working on a combination project with the Easy Care Merino and Tweed and thought I would share my thoughts on the yarn.

Easy Care Merino – the info bits  

So a single skein/ball of Easy Care Merino is 100% Wool/Merino yarn.  It comes in 50g balls which contain 185m/ yds per ball.  Available in 64 shades, this yarn is priced at £5.90 per ball.  It comes in a donut ball/skein.  

Easy Care Tweed

The Easy Care Tweed is an alternative version of this yarn with what I like to call Tweedy flecks.  Comprised of 80% Wool, 14% , and 6% Viscose it comes in 20 colours at the same £5.90 per 50g skein.. 

There are also Dk – Easy Care Classic and Aran – Easy Care Big versions of this yarn.

First, let’s talk about the price.  £5.90 for 50g of merino yarn is not cheap but you can get 100g of 100% wool for £12.00 which is half the price of a similar amount of yarn in a hank of hand dyed yarn.  

There is also the ever present multi buy discount that is available on Hobbii and their regular sales.  10 balls of this (in any combination of colours) will cost you £4.11 per ball.  This may work across the different weights as they are all priced the same and have the same taper but I haven’t actually tried that out yet.

How does it feel?

Soft and springy, although I think this could prove tricky to frog, especially in a project using the Tweed version.   For my first complete project with this yarn I used the Easy Care Tweed alone.  While I did notice that it was soft, there was a little scratchy/roughness to it.  Not nearly enough to be irritating or really noticeable but not as soft as the yarn I had just been using.

Now I’m working on a duo project, and if you hold the one of each skein of Easy Care Merino and Easy Care Tweed there is a difference to the feel of each skein and the Merino is noticeably softer.

What’s it like to work with?

I found this really easy to work with.  I pulled from the centre as I don’t like my balls rolling around, but this was totally seamless, even though I had to fish around a little to find the end in the middle.

I haven’t had much call to frog this yarn, yet.  However, what I have done suggests that while it will be possible the yarn could possibly break quite easily if pulled too tightly/hard.  The Tweed would definitely be more challenging to frog as the flecks would likely make it difficult to unravel stitches.

I’ve used a 3.5mm and 4mm hook with this yarn, the range on the band is 3 – 3.5.  I think that’s accurate and while I would like to go down a hook to get crisper stitches, my tension is super tight and working with a 3 would make most of my stuff buckle.

To check out the stitch definition on this yarn see the sample images below:

Yay or Nay Easy Care Merino yarn

For me, it’s a yay.

I like the feel of it, the variety of weights and the addition of the tweed variety as I love tweedy effect.  The fact that there are different weight options at the same price point helps, although if I am honest, I likely would stick to this and possibly the DK version and not use the Aran as I prefer finer weight yarns.

Project you could try with Easy Care Merino or Easy Care Tweed

This would be great for a cooler weather version of the Hawthorne Sweater or the Estelle Wrap.  I would choose a tweed for the sweater and solids for the wraps.

Easy Care Classic (DK) would be a great alternative for a solid colour version of Stella Moebius or the Linen Stitch Scarf.

I hope you enjoyed the post and look forward to seeing your projects made with Easy Care Merino yarn!

Pop into the Facebook Group and let me know what you think if you get some, or have used it previously.  Or just to suggest another yarn I might try and fall in love with! 

Bye for now,

B x