THE PROJECT

So here’s the challenge I set myself:

Find the best yarn to use for this crocheted newsboy cap pattern:

It’s a cute cap, and I figure that I’ll end up making a lot of them for myself and other people. So, I thought it would be a fun project to crochet this cap three times using three different yarns.

In the end, I’ll compare the three caps to find out which cap looks the best, and which is the best yarn to use when I make future cap incarnations.

THE PATTERN

I bought the above pictured crochet Swirls Cap pattern by Sophia Kessinger on Ravelry (www.Ravelry.com) for USD $5.

Here’s the link to the pattern: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/swirls-cap

Note that a free membership is required to access the Ravelry website. And, just in case you were wondering:

“Ravelry is a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, weavers and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools, project and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration. …Ravelry is a great place for you to keep notes about your projects, see what other people are making, find the perfect pattern and connect with people who love to play with yarn from all over the world in our forums.”

So, if you’re into crocheting and knitting, check it out.

THE YARN

The Hunt

The Swirls Cap pattern calls for 220 to 280 yards of light worsted weight yarn.

I browsed the aisle of my local Michaels store and choose the following three yarns for this experiment:

Caron Simply Soft
Lion Brand Heartland
Patons Classic Wool DK Superwash

My criteria for choosing these yarns were cost, softness, and quality.

There are real-life and online specialty yarn stores that carry a wide variety of wonderful—and spendy!—yarns, but I chose to buy the yarn for this experiment at Michaels because it was a local store and all of the yarns stocked there were reasonably priced—especially when one has coupons! So, I picked out what I thought were the softest and highest quality yarns on offer there at Michaels.

The Stats

Here are several ways to compare the yarns I bought.

Cost of Yarn

Caron Simply Soft
$4.49 for 315 yards x 1 skein = $4.49 total
Lion Brand Heartland
$6.49 for 250 yards x 1 skein = $6.49 total
Patons Classic Wool DK Superwash
$5.79 for 125 yards x 2 skeins = $11.58 total

Unit Cost of Yarn

Caron Simply Soft
$0.01 per yard
Lion Brand Heartland
$0.03 per yard
Patons Classic Wool DK Superwash
$0.05 per yard

Fiber Content of Yarn

Caron Simply Soft
100% acrylic
Lion Brand Heartland
100% acrylic
Patons Classic Wool DK Superwash
100% wool

Weight Category of Yarn

Caron Simply Soft
#4 Worsted weight
Lion Brand Heartland
#4 Worsted weight
Patons Classic Wool DK Superwash
#3 Light worsted weight

Softness of Yarn

Lion Brand Heartland
Most soft
Caron Simply Soft
Soft
Patons Classic Wool DK Superwash
Least soft

THE SWATCHES

The gauge for this pattern is: 4 dc (double crochet) stitches = 1 inch.

Here are the swatches I made of all three yarns.

All three yarns are exactly on gauge with the recommended hook size (yay!), but you’ll note that the swatches for the Heartland and Simply Soft yarns are fuller, in terms of the space the yarn occupies, than the swatch for the Classic Wool DK Superwash yarn.

I’m excited to see how these differences in the yarns affect the three caps I’m going to crochet!

See Part 2 of this post!