Red Heart Joins the Yarnspirations Family

Consolidation seems to be a part of most businesses these days, and it’s true of yarn companies, too. Two giants in the field have joined forces and Red Heart yarns has become a part of the Yarnspirations family.

Visitors to Red Heart’s website will be forwarded to Yarnspirations, where they will find the full catalog of Red Heart yarns to purchase. Red Heart patterns are being migrated to the site as well, so the site will have thousands of free patterns from all the various yarn lines, including Red Heart, Caron, Patons and more.

In a Facebook Live about the merger, knit and crochet designer and spokesperson for Red Heart Marly Bird said the reason for the combination of the two websites was because the Red Heart website wasn’t great and this allowed the parent company to combine all of its brands into one website rather than continuing to keep a separate website for that brand.

The major change aside from the different website is that many of the Red Heart designers will no longer be a part of the team, though Marly said she is continuing in her role and will now use the full range of Yarnspirations yarns instead of just Red Heart.

I love the Yarnspiration website so I think this is a great change and it makes it clear that Red Heart is part of the family, which I’m not sure everyone knew (the company was purchased in January). What do you think about the change?

[Photo: Yarnspirations.]

Generally I like knitting patterns where I feel like you can use whatever yarn you have (because my stash is big enough and I want to use it, thanks) and make a successful project. This is one of those times when a special yarn makes the process that much easier.

The Floral Bouquet Shawl from Xandy Peters uses a specific extended color pooling yarn from Feisty Fibers, which allows you to place the bobble flowers with increasing frequency as you knit the project.

It starts with a solid color yarn, then the two color yarn is added in, and you make a bobble whenever you encounter the color pops. This would be hard to replicate with other yarn that doesn’t have the extended color pooling built in.

The background of the shawl is ribbed, making the project reversible.

The shawl uses fingering/sock yarn and comes out to be an asymmetrical triangle that’s 54 inches/137 cm long and 36 inches/ 90 cm deep and 60 inches/150 cm across the top edge.

Xandy says the pattern is for intermediate to advanced knitters. Knowing how to work traditional bobbles would probably help, but there’s a great video tutorial for how to work the floral bobbles so you can practice on other yarn or even incorporate the bobbles into other projects.

The bobbles are five-petaled flowers but they also kind of look like starfish to me, which could be fun on a child’s cardigan or other pattern. They’d also be fun on the leg of a sock or around the brim of a hat for extra whimsy.

The pattern includes photo and video tutorials, and written and charted instructions. It also includes tips on what to look for if you choose to use different yarn for the project, and instructions on how to dye your own yarn to use in the project.

If you want to give it a try, you can find the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Xandy Peters]

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