Today I am putting Scheepjes Whirl under the microscope and looking at the good and bad. This is of course just my personal opinion! *This page contains affiliate links
The hard facts:
Composition: 60% Cotton/40% Acrylic
Contruction: Twisted Ply
Weight: 225gms
Length: 1000m
Size: 4ply Fingering Weight
My Opinion
For:
Of course there is cheaper yarn on the market but in my humble opinion you usually do get what you pay for. We could all wish that the Whirl grew on trees. We could simply head out into our garden to pick a few when needed. But sadly this is not the case (well not in my garden anyway).
I find Scheepjes Whirl to be a reasonably priced yarn that offers good quality and I am of the opinion that if you are going to bother to work your way through 1000m of yarn, then trying to produce an item that uses quality yarn is a must.
I find the sizing of these cakes great, and love the 1000m that is available in each yarn cake. For me and many of the items I design, this sizing works well.
I have to say I quite like working in Scheepjes Whirl and have done quite a few projects in it. I typically use a 3.5mm/E hook for projects worked in Whirl.
It is a great yarn for lighter weight blankets and really suitable for shawls. I find it drapes nicely and is quite soft.
I am a fan of the twisted composition of this. Unlike many of the slow gradient yarns this doesn’t split. So many of these types of yarn have small individual strands that are not twisted and it can be quite a pain to keep all those little strands together. I don’t have to worry about my hook slipping through one strand and then finding this fact 1000 stitches later.
I love the slow gradient colour changes. You have a choice of pulling from the centre of the yarn or the outside. This gives you the option to choose which way you want your colours to flow. At each colour change point you will find a tiny Fuzz Buzz (fluffy section where the yarn is rejoined). These don’t really bother me although I have seen many a comment from others who do find them annoying.
The content of the yarn being 60% cotton makes this yarn suitable for blocking. You know it will hold its shape.
Six Wishes for a Dragonfly Blanket. 2 x Scheepjes Whirl in Forbidden Fuchsia
The colour change transitions are subtle so you don’t have that sudden stop to a colour and this is a huge tick for me. I have several blanket designs that use 2 cakes. One of these is my ‘Six Wishes for a Dragonfly Blanket’. I strongly suggest you take the time to switch between the two cakes at colour changes. By using 2 cakes and working from the same colour section on each, you gain a full, slow colour change to a blanket. This takes a blanket that is gorgeous to a ‘WOW’ level! You can see the gentle flow of colour in my blanket pictured left. Click on the picture for the pattern.
Against:
While they have a reasonable colour selection, I feel that it is about time they updated and added to the selection. There is a number of the colour range, that I really don’t like, but of course that is personal opinion. I do tend to head towards purples, oranges and the odd pink or maybe a brown. I sometimes force myself out of my comfort zone and work in other colours and found myself doing just this with ‘On The Wings of a Dragonfly. I used Salted Caramel Matcha. Click on the picture left for this pattern.
On The Wings of a Dragonfly Shawl. 1 x Scheepjes Whirl in Salted Caramel Matcha
Short of rewinding (which is something I always tell myself I should do but then never do), I ALWAYS tend to find myself with yarn barf (tangles) at some point. No matter how hard I try, this yarn seems to always find a way to get itself into a mess. This of course is not just an issue with Whirls but with most fingering weight gradients I have used.
Overall:
Scheepjes Whirl is a yarn I am very happy to work with. Projects have that added ‘wow’ factor when worked in a beautiful slow gradient like these. I will no doubt have more designs in the future in this yarn and will be launching a new shawl in the next 2 weeks using Licorice Yum Yum.