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Chenille Yarn


Jayashiangel

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I have a person wanting a beanie made with chenille yarn could you assist me in explaining the texture/stretch/thickness to me.. I have only worked with cottons and Acrylic like Red Heart/ Hobby Lobby Yarn/Loops and thread...Thanks is this also a type of yarn you purchase at a specialty store and what type size (skeins do they come in?)

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I love chenille yarn, but it does not stretch, so you have to be pretty exact with fitted items. Chenille will worm (crawl) out of longer stitches, so I only do sc with it and it stays put beautifully. Once you get your gauge "thus" as my girlfriend and I say, it will almost have the feel of a carpet, but at the same time will drape. Working with it is a little fussier, but is worth it.

 

Most of my chenille has been purchased in regular stores, not specialty ones, some in dollar stores, and some was gifted to me. A lot of it is Lion Brand, which I love, and is now discontinued. Most of mine are 3 to 3.5 oz skeins.

 

I forgot to say, most of mine is worsted weight. A small amount is thinner than the worsted, and I'm not crazy about it. I ended up using it double stranded. I have Thick & Quick which I want to use to make chair pads, but I haven't done it yet.

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Of the weights I used so far, I liked the worsted weight the most.

 

The ones that were lighter weight came off cones, and were less consistent with thickness. They were much thinner in some places, to the point of breaking. I hate that.

 

The Thick & Quick looks consistent, so I guess I'll find out when I use it.

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As stated previously, it is warm and drapes great, but has no stretch of it's own only the stretch you would get from the size hook and amount of tension used.

The thinner yarn breaks while crocheting with it if you apply any decent tension so it really should be used double or with another yarn. I have difficulty with the heavier weight as I am a tight crocheter and it seems to grab the hook, keeping it from sliding smoothly off and on. I had to do alot of waxing of my hooks and use a large hook.

Not one of my fav yarns to use, but is workable.

.

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Bernat Cotton tots baby yarn has a thread wrapped around the yarn? to keep it from doing something crazy? I have been wanting to know why it had a thread around it..:O)

For texture and appearance and strength....

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Several years ago I bought an expensive afghan kit that used a variety of yarns. I just knew it was going to be the most gorgeous thing ever! Chenille yarn was brand new and I thought it would add to the beauty of these wonderful yarns in the kit so I ordered about $50 worth, Pushing my investment up to around $200.... YIKES!

 

I worked the rows of fancy yarns, here and there adding in a couple of rows of chenille yarn. Within a week or so little warty bumps started to show up in the chenille sections. As the afghan grew, so did these warts, soon becoming little catterpillars. Eveyone I showed it to thought it was odd, how these thing started out as just little bumps and would grow bigger and bigger each day as I was working on the afghan. Soon the ones that showed up first were a loopy thing, 3-4 inches long, maybe there were 10 or 15 of them in the two inch section of chenille rows in the double crochet pattern I was using, mostly showing up around the "V" stitches.

 

Long story short... It probably took me a month or so to make this and a month later the worms finally stopped growing. Some ended up to be a 6-8 inch long loop,, so 12-16" of chenille had actually unravelled off the center thread that still formed the stitches.

 

There were a couple hundred of them hanging off my beautiful afghan!! It was beyond sad, actually I had to laugh because it was the craziest thing any of my knitting and crocheting friends had ever seen. It made the rounds around town, you can bet no one ever bought any chenille yarn around here.

 

I'd be sure to do a test piece and abuse the daylights out of it before you make your friend a hat.... you wouldn't want it to turn into a wiglet of curly loops.!

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