Boucle Yarn, Never Again

[varianbetweenstars]

Years ago, I bought some boucle style yarn because it was on sale (I was very new to knitting.) Over the weekend, I tried to start a blanket out of it and, well, I realized what a mistake that was.

At first I liked the warm, drape-y texture. But then knitting two stitches together was a *nightmare*, and the pattern I picked required picking up stitches, and I couldn't see the stitch I was supposed to be picking up. Then I tried to bind off, and it's like the bind off *shrank* as I did it.

Overall, 2/10, would not recommend.

Comments

[patelyne]

I have a love/hate relationship with boucle yarn. It’s looks so nice (especially if it’s handspun) but it is terrible to work with, Something that evil has no business being so pretty.

[cimorene]

My primary loungewear sweater is an alpaca boucle that I knitted a few years ago.

I don't know how similar different boucle yarns are to each other, so it might be easier to use than yours was, especially if it's newer. It seemed to have a synthetic core and then there was like a tiny knitted sleeve of alpaca around the core and the loops of alpaca that made up the boucle were all coming out of this little knitted sleeve. So apart from how the yarn handled - I knitted it at a very, very loose gauge with much larger needles so the fabric would be drapy and airy, so that made increasing and decreasing easier anyway. But the yarn still had a tendency to felt to itself, so the fabric isn't really elastic like other knitting because the yarn can't slide around easily. That also meant - weirdly - that besides being nearly invisible the ribbing had no real effect... it didn't make the fabric contract or stretch at all and you have to look at it from a certain angle in the light to even tell where the ribbing is now. And because of that felting any time I made a mistake and had to unravel anything, it was stuck together and I'd have to carefully tear it apart and the little alpaca sleeve of loops had a tendency to tear. Sometimes I was able to fix these mistakes just by pushing it back into place and letting the natural felting hold it, but it is very easy to ruin the yarn that way.

But all of that said... it feels AMAZING. It's the most comfortable, softest sweater I've ever had. It's like being hugged by a cloud, and it's both warmer AND cooler than another sweater at the same gauge, because it's full of air but all the loops trap heat.

[mmouse15]

My sympathy. I knit items using Cat Mountain yarns, which always have boucle yarn and the boycle portion is always the slowest knitting I do.

[vilakins]

I have a cardigan in boucle and it's been hibernating for over a year because it's such a pain to knit, especially in moss stitch which the back is (and part of the back is all I've managed). I'd love to finish it as it's a cool pattern, but the process isn't the pleasure most knitting is.

[yuuago]

I'd never heard this term, so I looked it up... Wow, that definitely looks like a type of yarn that would be a challenge to work with, yeah.

[xylohypha]

I knitted a hooded scarf sort of thing out of boucle type yarn a couple years ago. The pattern I worked up for it was pretty simple: a regular go-around-the-neck-twice long scarf, with some short row stuff to shape it to go over my head nicely. As I recall it, I used a double seed stitch for it, with an inch or so of ribbing at the edges. Didn't have much trouble actually working with the yarn, probably because the pattern (such as it was) was so simple. In the end the seed stitch wasn't really visible as such, and just gave it a little texture.

But it's warm and comfortable and I'm still happy with it when the weather's cold and blustery and I'm on my morning walk.

[oakmouse]

I haaaaaaate boucle yarns. A couple of years ago I made the mistake of letting four skeins of boucle yarn in a colorway I loved fall from the clearance rack into my shopping cart. I hadn't used boucle yarn in over a decade, so I'd forgotten how awful it is.

I couldn't knit it at all, even using a needle several sizes "too big". I finally managed to crochet a shawl with it, using a N hook (10mm) instead of an H (5 mm) as the label called for, and I still fought it all the way. I love the resulting shawl --- it's cozy and warm and so pretty! But. I will NEVER buy or use a boucle yarn again. Ever.