The essential yarn for knitting soft garments

Red HeartSoft Essentials is one of your foundation yarns. It’s good for 90% of projects and comes in all your basic colors. Soft Essentials can be one of the building block yarns that make sure you can knit anything from your stash.

The first thing I want to talk about is the weight of the yarn. It’s a bulky weight so anything you choose to knit in this fiber will knit up very fast. This is a major benefit when you just want to take out some yarn and get knitting.

I also like this yarn for teaching others to knit. It’s a nice large yarn, but it doesn’t have too much texture. Soft Essentials slides along the needles well, so you don’t have to fight with your tension. I’m always on the look out for good yarn to teach people with. If you start a beginner off with a strange yarn that happens to be difficult to knit with, you’re not setting them up for success.

The fiber is 100% acrylic so that means easy care instructions. Machine wash and dry! As always, I would make a swatch and wash it to see how this fiber will react when you wash it. Acrylic usually relaxes, so you can afford to knit the fabric tightly and very stiff, then have the pleasure of watching it relax into the softest garment you’ll ever own. When you’re knitting this swatch with Soft Essentials and washing to see how the fiber will react, also take special care to note if the swatch grows at all. This is important information if you’re knitting anything that needs to be fitted.

Now for the question I know you’ve all been asking in your head: is Soft Essentials really that soft? The short answer is yes, it is that soft. When you first touch it, the fiber is smooth and sleek. No halo or fuzziness to speak of, but the fiber itself is very springy and smooth. It’s soft in the way that water is considered soft; cool, smooth, and flowing. Join me tomorrow for more Soft yarn fun.