Yarn Review: Knit Picks: Brava Worsted

Hello and Welcome back to another Yarn Review. This week we are talking about a less well known yarn that has been very dear to me. Knit Picks is an online company that makes yarn and other knitting, crochet, spinning etc. accessories. Brava Worsted is their basis worsted weight yarn, so what do I think about it? Let's find out!

Knit picks yarns are on the other side of what I talked about when I was talking about Red Heart: With Love, they are a smaller company only selling their in house yarns, so the stigmas attached are great. Using their yarns definitely feels like a step above using what you can find in your local Walmart, or even big craft store. How does this classier yarn stand up against it's lower brow counterparts:

Texture:
The texture is pretty great, soft and sleek without feeling waxy. Definitely a skein you will want to just sit and hold a bit before starting your project (please tell me I am not the only one doing this). With bigger stitches it definitely keeps that soft feel and smaller stitches will pick up more of the sleek silky feel. Sadly it looses both when using double strands on a tight stitch, but that's not something I do often. That soft feel is consistent through their other colors.

One thing to keep in mind, this yarn is going to b at it's best knitted, not crocheted. the texture will play best with larger knit stitches where you will get less of the yarn knotting itself taking away from that lovely texture.

Overall texture holds up very nicely.

Yarn Weight:
This yarn is listed as a 4 or worsted weight, same as our last yarn but while the With Love was bigger than your average worsted Knit Picks: Brava is a lot smaller, just over half the size (smaller for their strangely small colors)

This is by no means a standard worsted. It is one of the smallest I have seen in the category. Comparing yarns like this make me think maybe we should add a few more size categories (say a 4 1/2 or something) but that's a conversation for another day. Small is by no means bad as long as you are expecting it and it is consistent. They have a bulky weight that is very similar that is also very small for its size category that you can use instead if you are looking for a large worsted. Size consistency is decent, you will be fine within the same color but I have noticed a couple of colors run a bit small, the white and red especially, but it is not a huge difference, but definitely something to keep in mind.

Overall yarn weight is ok, consistency over different colors would be nice.

Color Cosistency:

Two words; Dye Lot. Knit Picks fully warns you that they use dye lots and colors will change overtime. This is not inherently bad and something crafters need to plan for. I made this mistake and mid plushie found myself with a much more orangey yellow. Colors are consistent within dye lots and do not seem to change too often so plan appropriately and you will not have a problem. This seems to come from the fact that they sometimes are made in China and sometimes in Turkey the colors seem to be consistent within the different plants. If you are making plushies or projects that need very specific shades you may want to look elsewhere.

Overall, color consistency is good through dye lots.

Color Variety:

As I said last week, I like a lot of color choice, and Knit Picks does not dissapoint.

That is fifty shades right there. I do not think we could ask for much more. With a full range of colors you are going to be able to find pretty much any color you need. The colors are all bight and vibrant in person and even the closest shades are different enough that they look good when used next to each other making it easy to do ombre effects. There are no varigeted options sadly but having a greater variety of single colored yarns is a good swap.

Overall colors are great. If you cannot find it here you will have to dye it yourself.

 Felting:

I recently picked up felting, so I like taking a look at yarn to see how it holds up when brushed out and used for felting so here is my results.
I have never felted with this yarn before due to it being a bit more expensive and so small but let's see how it shapes up. I'm using three colors, red, canary, and blush. If this is your first time, you may want to take a look at my post on Felting  to understand what I am doing here.

 

forgive me if the picture is a little Fuzzy! *rimshot*

The red was a smaller yarn and came out very sleek and soft which, while amazing to touch, is not good for felting. The other two came out rougher which bodes better.

So maybe I should not have done this test on a piece made of the same yellow...but you can see the other colors. The red did no go well being hard to shape and it took a lot of roving for the yellow not to show through much more than the others. The yellow and pink worked pretty well, I still prefer a rougher yarn for this but it went pretty well it just requires a lot more roving to cover your area.

Overall not terrible but you will get much beter results from a cheaper yarn. Save this yarn for your knitted or crocheted projects.

Price:

And now time for the numbers segment of our show. As I said at this beginning, you are paying for a higher quality with this yarn and it shows. The price is not terrible but the skeins are pretty small. There is only one place to get this yarn, at Knit Pick's shop or through their magazine, so price is simple.
$2.99 a skein, which is 100 Grams and 218 yards
which comes out to:
$.029 per gram and $0.137 per yard compared to the With Love's $.025 per gram and $.0131 per yard
The differences seem small on that scale but $.40 on 100 grams adds up when one skein makes you a project. This is a nicer yarn and worth the price there are definitely worse yarns going for more. I enjoy working with it but when I go back to knit picks, it will be for their bulky not the worsted (which is the same price per gram but less yardage).

Like I said the only place to get it is
Knitpicks.com they have other non-acrylic yarns and yarn crafting accessories and do often have sales, right now they have one for Halloween colors so you can get your brown and orange worsted for $2.69
I'm sure you can also find it places like ebay but personally I like supporting independent companies


That's about all I have to say. I will be using up my stock of this yarn and moving on to others but I really do enjoy working with it and recommend it if you like a smaller worsted yarn and don't mind the other flaws I mentioned. As I mentioned I am a big fan of the bulky and will continue to use that in the future. Let me see you out with some pictures of projects I gave made with the Knit Picks: Brava Worsted

Jolteon in Canary, if you can tell the tail pieces are a slightly different color from a different dye lot

Body is made using Canary, hair is red heart

Cthulhu pony is made using Brava Bulky and a hook too large for the pattern, in person the stuffing shows through

Two Pinky Pies the one on the right is made using a double strand, it used up more than an entire skein

only the yellow and black is made with brava but it is so soft!

I believe this is black and celestial

Twilight sparkle (with big sad eyes) bady made from Freesia, Pink in the tail is Rouge

Thanks for taking a look and join me on Friday for another works in progress. I am thinking of what to do for next time, let me know if you have a request. For now I am sticking with worsted weight acrylics. Have a great week!