BASIC INFORMATION – VEGGIE WOOL ORIGINAL SKEINS:
- Skeins: 500 gr / 500 meters, 250 gr / 250 meters, 100g / 100m (old skeins)
- Composition: 100% dralon – vegan acrylic wool.
- Brand: Casasol Filicor
- Price: 21,50 € / 500 gr skein or 11,50€ for 250gr / skein
- Shade range: 15 colors available. Every year they change their skein colors.
*Note: All colors from this post are from the 2019 collection. - Where can you buy it: Casasol official retailers (mostly in Spain and they have started in Latin America and you have some shops around Europe). You can check stores in this website.
- Needles / hook recommended: 5 – 7 mm (both knit and crochet)
- Gauge: not specified on website or skeins.
I have knitted and crocheted with this yarn so in this post we will talk about both techniques and see pictures of finished garments.
For the KNITTED VERSION I have used 5mm knitting needles, obtaining the following gauge:
Gauge for stockinette stitch – not wet blocked (10cm x10cm) = 14 stitches x 20 rows. Garter stitch gauge – wet blocked (10cm x 10cm) = 16 stitches x 16 rows.
For the CROCHET VERSION I used a 7 mm crochet hook, aprox the gauge for double crochet is: 11 stitches x 5 rows.
I think there is no wrong or correct needles/hooks in this case, you should choose depending on the result you are looking for and of course, the way you knit or crochet and how much tension you apply.
I must admit that working with 5 MM knitting needles and comparing the result to the 7 MM hook I spent a lot of time knitting to barely move forward but for the chord cardigan (review here!) it vas really worth it.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS & APPEARANCE
Here you have different options of presentation, I have the 500gr skein and the 100gr one in shade burdeos and buganvilla.
I really liked the format of the 500gr skein since it’s easier to knit/crochet with, due to the cardboard in the middle that helps the skein but you can always use a “yarn holder” or bowl to help you (and casasol has designed a tool that you can change depending on the skein you are working with).
The texture is very soft and when I got the bigger skeins I just felt like hugging them. When you play with the strand of yarn, you can easily unravel the threads so I recommend having this in mind when starting a project to leave a bit more than you are used to in order to tuck it in properly when sewing your project and avoid unraveling.
They are easily stored and you don’t have to worry about skeins unraveling, they are winded very tight, but sometimes that tension is different and you can end up with bigger and smaller skeins that weight the same (yup, I checked 😉).
Since it’s vegan it’s perfect for people who are looking for a substitute for wool because of allergies or animal welfare.
WORKING WITH THE BALLS OF VEGAN WOOL:
As I anticipated before I knitted and crocheted this yarn, so let’s see how it turned it up:
KNITTING
I used 5MM knitting needles, which I think looks amazing especially for stockinette stitch as in the swatch but of course, being “small needles” for that yarn, it takes a looong while to knit (if you are used to smaller needles it won’t be a problem, but after knitting the leaf sweater with 10MM knitting needles or the shawls with 7MM crochet hook it seemed like a decade).
With the stockinette stitch I think it looks amazing, but it is a bit bulky, if that is what you are looking for and you want to have a bit of structure in your garment I would totally say go, but it is something that you need to have in mind when thinking about the project you would want to knit.
CROCHET:
Here are a few pictures of different stitches using a 7MM crochet hook. Like it always happens with crochet and since the yarn is bulky / bulky, the result tends to be thicker, so have it in mind when visualizing your project.
Since it is a 7MM hook you can see the results way to fast (especially if you go for double crochet stitches). Even if you see some small wholes between stitches since they are a bit loose (I am a very loose knitter and crocheter, so maybe you obtain different results with the same hook) the warmth that you get out of the wool is incredible. I felt it when crocheting the striped shawl which was very good and I always ended up having it over my lap, it totally felt like a blanket (maybe second use for the shawl when knitting on the couch?)
If I had to compare both knit and crochet, I think crocheting this yarn is easier than knitting, since when I was knitting it was kinda easy to get the needle in the middle of the thread, which results in threads sticking out of the stitch (but that is just preference, with both techniques this yarn works more than fine!).
When unraveling a crocheted project, the yarn looked just as fine as the first time (even if it was 3-4 times at least) so that is a big plus…
FINAL RESULT:
The veggie wool, even though it’s an acrylic vegan yarn, the warmth that you can obtain with the knitwear or garments using this yarn it’s amazing. I’ve done one cardigan and two shawls as gifts for Christmas and they loved it.
Touch: it is very soft, both knitted and crocheted so both options are great when working with this yarn.
Washing: I’ve only blocked the cardigan (the crochet shawls didn’t need it, they looked great as they were so I skipped that step – but remember you can always go to my post about blocking here if you have any doubts) and washed it, which was as expected and didn’t stretch (leaving it to dry horizontally of course)
Before and after use: as you can see down below this cardigan has been my go-to one lately and you cannot appreciate any difference between before and after so that’s a big thumbs up.
IS IT WORTH ALL THE HYPE?
My experience with it has been amazing and the projects are very warm, I like the fact that even people allergic to wool can enjoy warm knitwear.
Would I buy it again? I think it is not a yarn that it’s very expensive (4,30€/100gr)and with 21€ you can have a crochet shawl, but of course there are other dupes in the market that I will for sure test and let you know!
Another good thing about having a lot of official retailers for this brand you can always check for deals and availability to get a good bargain.
My only con for this yarn is that each year they come up with new colors to subsitute the previous year’s ones so you need to be careful when starting a project at the end of the year and you are unsure of the quantity you will need.
A few retailers still have some old colors, even some months after the new launch and sometimes you have some that offer sales with old colors at specific times so if you are lucky and do some digging you might be able to find some left overs.
With that being a con, I must admit that they have a very wide variety of colours and the old ones (at least the 2019 collection colors) are easily combined with 2020 colors, so that’s a plus.
Hope this gives you a better insight of this yarn and don’t forget to give this a thumbs up if you liked it in order to create more content like this in the blog 😉
Have a great Sunday!
Xx
Marta