A couple of months ago, I got the nicest email from Yarncanada.ca, asking me if I would be interested in trying out some new yarn in exchange for an honest review. You know that when it comes to yarn, “I’m just a girl who cain’t say no” (musical theatre throwback!), so soon enough a package of squishy goodness arrived in the mail.
The yarn is Lion Brand Mandala Tweed (Worsted, 100% acrylic), and I opted for the Dice colourway. It’s described on the website as, “easy to work with and you instantly get a tweedy, self-striping effect.” True and true. It has a natural, wool-like hand feel – none of that squeakiness you can sometimes get with inexpensive acrylics, and it comes in a honking-big cake of 520 m (568 yard).
The challenge I had with the two cakes I received was deciding what to make with them. I wanted to use them both in a single project and, in a rare change, I didn’t have any impending babies to make a blankie for. Plus, the yarn is busy and colourful. I wanted to show it at its best. I strongly felt the simpler stitch, the better for this yarn.
After several weeks of mulling as well as frantically working on Christmas gifts, I found a pattern that spoke to me. The free Livezey House wrap is meant to be knit in stockinette with four different skeins of complementary colours, resulting in a pleasingly stylish yet simple, long, thick scarf. Knitting it out of the self-striping Mandala Tweed made it even easier to tackle with, in theory, fewer joins to be made.
What I found in practice was that, though I am clearly not obsessive about matching up stripes and ensuring two sides are symmetrical (have you seen my sockses?), I did have to do some winding and hunting through the second skein to ensure that it would join in a non-jarring way. The two cakes were surprisingly different in terms of the order and amount of each colour included. I had thought a mass-produced yarn would be more uniform. For me, this inconsistency was kind of enjoyable to be honest, but I can imagine some folks being irritated.
The LIvesey House wrap starts with a triangle which extends on two planes out to become the length of the scarf. The triangle is then aggressively blocked into shape, so you end up with an actual long – in my case, really long – rectangular scarf. Super cool. The blocking worked reasonably well with this yarn despite it being an acrylic. Also a slight remaining triangle shape would not be an issue anyway because of how I like to wrap it, Lenny style.
I am happy to say that Mandala Tweed, listed at about $12 Canadian on YarnCanada.ca, is an excellent choice for a highly washable, easy to use, fun yarn. The pattern was easy-peasy and relaxing. I’ve had a bunch of compliments on the scarf, which I’ve already worn several times, pretty much all focused on the rich and lovely colour palette.
