Review of Lana Boucle Yarn by Brown Sheep Company

Hey everybody, it's Deja from KnitAndCrochetEverAfter.com, and today I am reviewing this Lana Boucle from Brown Sheep Company. So, I'm going to give you a close-up of this because they call it a boucle, but I'm used to, like, 90s boucle, or early 2000s, where it's like this poofy, thick and super thin, or super thick, poofy, kind of hard to work with. With this. Has that kind of poofy boucle, but it's very, you know, it's completely patterned or consistent. I'm trying to think of the word. It's very consistent. It's not big and little all over the place. It's just very consistent twist. And that's because the wool is actually wrapped around or twisted around a nylon core. So it gives us this very cool look that I'm going to have to show you close up so you can see what I'm talking about. But let me tell you a little bit about the yarn first. Shaked my camera. So this is Lana Boucle from Brown Sheep Company. They have over 25 colors right now. I'll put links in the description to their website because they have just a very big range. I had a very specific idea in my head of what I wanted to make and you'll see that in a little bit so I wanted just cream and gray for my project but they have tons of beautiful bright colors. The yardage on these is 180 yards so it's got good yardage and it's reasonably priced and I really like Brown Sheep Wool I've used it in lots of other projects especially cowls even though this is a hundred percent wool it actually like it's just really good for like winter wear items if you do have a wool allergy you know of course that's going to be a problem but if you don't this stuff Holds up super well. I have cowls that I've made over 10 years ago that still look the same. So this is a hundred percent wool so you have to hand wash and lay flat to dry otherwise you're gonna felt it because it's not super wash or anything like that. But it's not Like it's not scratchy to me and I I can tell the different wools but it's definitely not like a merino where it's like silky smooth but this boucle also gives you a different kind of feel because it's got the texture to it so it's it's its own little bag so I'm gonna try a fair isle project with this actually and it could go horribly wrong because of this texture. But I'm going to try it because I want to see what happens so we'll see how that turns out. So Brown Sheep did provide me this yarn for my honest review so I'm going to tell you like it is but I want to tell you a little bit about Brown Sheep. They are a USA company in Nebraska whichever way depending it's this way for me but maybe that way if you're watching me on the camera. Thank you, Tamara. They... Use sustainable practices for manufacturing, they reuse 70 to 90% of the wastewater when they're doing their process. They buy the wool direct from growers. So they're really trying to be sustainable, which these days, you know, is very important. Thank Once again the colorways are beautiful check them out in the link below. I'm going to give you a close-up of this boucle so you can see what I'm talking about you with its consistent texture and then I'm going to show you my fair isle project that I very am working on and we'll see how it turns out. with boucle Let's go check it out. Okay, so I wanted to give you a close-up of this boucle I don't know So you can see the texture and that it actually is very consistent So it's not like a normal boucle where you get big poofs and little poofs and it's hard to see your stitches when you're working This should be pretty easy to work with but you do get that texture So it's gonna be really interesting With what's gonna happen when I am doing The Fair Isle with this it's gonna either go really well or really bad but the texture is really kind of like the main reason why you would choose this. So we'll do some regular stitches and then we'll also do the Fair Isle just so you can see the difference or not really the difference because they're both knit stitches but you can see How it looks when it's just a plain stitch and then also when it's worked together. So I'm going to go get a project and show you some of that. Okay, so I'm working some ribbing on this scarf. I'm doing a fair isle scarf, so I'm working it in the round and I'm doing ribbing on the edges so they don't curl. And the actual... Pay attention what I'm doing. The actual working of this yarn is very easy, very similar to any other kind of wool. The texture is not getting in the way of working these stitches. You can see, let's stop going for a second so you can look at them. You can see that the stitches have a little bit more of a rustic look I'll call it so the texture kind of catches those stitches so it may not it kind of creates like uneven stitches not horribly uneven just to give it kind of some texture because of where those loops Catch on your stitch can give it like a little bit extra or pull it a little tighter so you get variation in the stitches, which actually is going to work really good, hopefully, for the project that I have in mind because it's kind of a rustic type. Farmhouse style pattern, I'll say. So I'm going to keep going with this. I'm going to start with the Fair Isle, and then I'll show you how that works out while I'm working it, so you can see what I think about that. And then I'll show you the finished. thing and an overall final thoughts so i'm gonna go get to work. okay so i have my fair isle project here so i can tell you what i think and i actually love it I love it. this yarn actually works really great for fair isle and the reason i think is because of the nubs so i can kind of like if i think my slack is not you know enough To stretch out I can kind of pull on it and the nubs are kind of like a locking mechanism almost and that's actually True for the stitches as well. So if I get too much slack So say I pull it out that far and I go onto my next stitch Or let me get to the slack again here like the stitch Itself over here you can see is not budging. So I have all this slack here but this stitch isn't budging because those little nubs kind of like grab it and keep it the same size it's really cool so it it actually and even when i come and work this stitch again the next time it like works itself out this yarn even though it's wool it's really easy to frog so if i do have a problem and i want to fix tension somewhere i can easily Frog it out and it's not sticking to each other. Again, I think it's because of those nubs. So like I have no complaints with this yarn working this Fair Isle. If, so the only, the condition that I would make for this working Fair Isle is I would stick to more rustic home style kind of patterns and not something delicate. So, you know, if it's some pretty feathery, lacy, whatever, like, this is, I think, geared more towards a rustic-y kind of look. It's not going to give you, like, perfect stitches, but it looks really cool. Like, I love the texture of it. I love how this is turning out. So this is going to be, like, a really wide scarf that's going to hang, like, about to your waist. So, I just, I really like how... that it's turning out it's it's cool one um warning that they do give you so i'm gonna have to check this out with my extra yarn because i have not done it yet they warn that some of the colors can bleed so to block your or do a test block before you begin so i was dedicated to this i wanted this for sure so i didn't bother Um, if I really want to wet block this, I really want to get this like looking really nice and flat and even, so I really want to wet block it, but I'm not sure if this black or this dark gray will, will, um, bleed. So I may have to steam it, hopefully not. So I would think more like if you're doing the reds or oranges or other colors that really tend to bleed, that you would have more of a problem with that. So just be aware, you know, be aware when you're buying the colors. And the combinations that you want to make, that you're taking that into consideration. So I'm sure there's somewhere you can Google that says like what colors bleed the most and that should help you out. But I know red for sure because we always see those commercials of putting reds in the whites. So I'm going to go finish this. I'm going to do a little test block and then I'm going to block this however I can and show you the final project and give you my final thoughts. Okay, I finished my project, and you'll notice that it looks a little different from a second ago. Maybe. I don't remember how close I was. But there were three arrows before, and now we only have two arrows wide. Because I got through the entire scarf and I was like trying to force myself to like it But it was just too wide. The three arrows just made it too wide and too short. It just looked weird. It wasn't working So I frogged the entire thing the entire thing and it took a long it took me a couple hours just to frog it I did find out this yarn frogs beautifully. It pulls out, doesn't stick, didn't have one single stick, and you know what I mean? If you've worked with wool yarn, some of that stuff, you start pulling on it and they just kind of lock up and not let go. This yarn, no problem. The biggest problem was going from dark to light yarn and winding those separately. That was The thing that took the longest, but totally frog. And, because this has kind of a texture to it, because it's got the bouclé, it did not show my stitches. And that's really nice when you frog something so that you don't have to kind of steam it or do anything weird to try to get the yarn to kind of lay flat again. It was able to be used immediately, it worked wonderfully. So once I finished, I wet blocked it, which was another cool thing. The dark does not run. So I was able to wet block the whole thing, which I really think helped make this, you know. look as gray as it can steam blocking i'm not really a fan like it's really hard to get it to look really really good steam blocking at least with mine, I must, I probably have really bad steamers really bad irons maybe some work well but i always have horrible luck with steam irons so i loved wet block and i was really happy that i was able to do that and you can see like it is flat these Six stitches here in the middle. I did not catch any floats. These are all free-flowing floats. Let me show you. Nothing caught. See how long those suckers are? So I was afraid that I was gonna have puckering or, you know, something too tight, too loose, whatever. You can see, like, it is consistently flat. That yarn blocked so well and it gave me tons of length. When I finished this wearing it was about to my hips which I was fine with but it's kind of like I probably couldn't wrap it because it is quite thick. It's a quadruple really because it's in the round and then it's got the floats inside for like almost four layers so it's going to be really thicker on your neck and I was kind of like oh it's going to be kind of short it's going to be like Like, you know, boob. boob height. So, but when I blocked it, it's like almost at my ankles. That's how long it is. So I had no problem wrapping it around with like slack. It wasn't choking me. It was like slack and still at my waist hip area. So you'll see in the pictures that it really blocked wonderfully and grew in length a ton. So if you get some yarn and you're like, oh, I don't know if this is going to be long enough for a scarf, block it. You'll probably get a lot of length. So, so this yarn, I'm, I love it. It's great. I love the price of it. Check out the link to see the pricing on it. It's a really reasonable yarn for a yarn store yarn, and you get a quite a bit of yardage. So the colors are really pretty. I would have loved to I would have loved to have tried just a lot more colors and do lots of other projects but I'm so happy with this scarf. It's now my favorite scarf that I have right now and I'm going to be wearing it a lot in the winter. It's April right now so I got a ways to go but I'm ready for next So go check out the Lana Boucle. Check out the colors. Check out all the other brown sheep yarns. They are great. I love their chunky. Their chunky is awesome. The colors are It's beautiful. They have some great heathered colors. So check it out. If you make anything with it, tag me on Instagram or Facebook so I can see your project or what you think about it. It's such cool yarn. So I'm Deja with Knit and Crochet Ever After dot com and thank you for watching.