This yarn appreciation post is brought to you by the Pattern Notes post I wrote for my Super Simple Summer Sweater!
After I wrote about how much I loved knitting with it, I dug through my stash to see how much I had left over. Not nearly enough to make something with, but it did inspire me to look through all the colours on LoveCrafts and of course I fell in love with it all over again.
I was first drawn to this yarn because I was standing in a fancy yarn store with a lot of high end options and the Berroco Vintage was just as soft and lovely as all the others, but the price point and durability really made a lot of sense!
The Cost
At 217 yards per skein, I had a little math to do when I was figuring out how much yarn I needed and I am always terrified of losing at yarn chicken so I very rarely let myself get into situations where that might happen. Which just means I usually err on the side of an extra skein because of course I’d rather have an extra one than not enough, and I knew I wanted to do a matching sweater for Nacho. So that meant I needed somewhere around 1300 yards, roughly. That ended up being five skeins of the Dark Denim and one of the Oats. On LoveCrafts, a total of six skeins of Berroco Vintage will cost you about $70. For a set of matching sweaters that have been worn and washed and worn and washed over and over again for over two years now with no signs of wear and tear, that’s a good price!
Compared to some of the high end yarns of the same weight, it’s literally $90 less to go with the Berroco Vintage. Literally you could knit two sets of sweaters for the same price as one!
The Durability
This yarn is a really nice blend of wool and acrylic with a little nylon. It’s a 52% / 40% / 8% mix, respectively, and this mix is why garments made with this yarn are so easy to care for.
I wash these sweaters in the washer and lay them flat to dry, and with more than two years of usage and washing, they are not showing any signs of wear. Nacho isn’t exactly gentle on his clothes and even his sweater still looks new! He wears it outside a lot (because of course we love to match in public), so it get washed regularly. He also likes to wear it at home because it’s warm enough to wear and still curl up on a blanket without overheating so it is put on and taken off pretty frequently too and it still holds it shape and hasn’t gotten stretched out.
Final Thoughts
Berroco Vintage will probably always have a special spot in my heart because it is the yarn I used in my very first successful sweater and in my first dog sweater. The quality, durability, ease of care and price make it one I will come back to again and again.