Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Crocheted Ruffled Scarves - Sashay vs. Starbella




Happy New Year! 

Over the Christmas holiday, I took advantage of the sale on Sashay yarn at Michael's to try out this new product, well, fairly new product.  I just hadn't gotten up the courage to give it a try!  I absolutely love how the ruffled crochet scarves turned out - don't you?!?

To overcome my fear of working with this non-traditional yarn, I began by watching the Red Heart Sashay Yarn video on YouTube.  It was helpful in giving me an idea of what to do, but the angle was not filmed well so it was sometimes hard to see what they person was talking about.  Once you get started though, it really came together rather quickly.

Hook sizes ... Sashay called for Size J hook, which I tried and did about 4 inches of the scarf with but ended up tearing it out and starting over with a smaller hook.  My first scarf was 6 stitches across for the foundation row and then 5 stitches for the remaining rows.  With each new scarf, I adjusted the hook size and the width of the stitches and finally settled on a size G hook and 3 stitches.  This makes the scarf not quite as "puffy" and a little longer - each averaged about 40 inches for 30 yds. of yarn.

When I purchased my Sashay yarn, I also purchased the competitor's yarn - Starbella from Premier Yarns.  It was about $1 more than the Sashay, and is 33 yds. as opposed to 30 yds.  After stitching up the 3 crocheted ruffled scarves pictured above, I did one Starbella scarf (picture to come!).  In working with both yarns, my preference is the Starbella.  Unlike the Sashay yarn, the Starbella yarn does not have the glittery edge to it and is a softer, more pliable yarn.  The Sashay was much stiffer to work with, but it does make a nicer, more polished product with the sparkly edge to it.  The Starbella is more casual, but equally as pretty!

In working with this type of yarn, the trickiest issue was having to flatten out the netting from the tape-like skein it comes on.  As I got to the end of the scarf (about 3/4 of the way through), the skein end of the yarn was completely twisted, making it more cumbersome to unravel and prepare to crochet and therefore slowing me down.  On my second scarf, I unraveled all of the yarn, flattened out the netting, and re-rolled it (again, very tedious) hoping it would make a difference in actually crocheting the project.  Nope, not much help and overall about the same amount of time.  It did seem that the Starbella yarn did not twist quite as much, but it did still twist. 

I have many more skeins of both the Starbella and Sashay in my stash and will work those into scarves - and yes, I will buy more of both products as I think these scarves are very pretty and have had requests from people looking for these types of scarves in particular!  

What has been your experience in working with Sashay or Starbella?

10 comments:

  1. Like starbella more. I think its easy to work with. I agree that sashay is more stiffer and a $1.00 cheaper!

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  2. I just saw at Michaels last night that they now have Starbella Flash - same great yarn, but now has that metallic pop for a little more glamor!

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  3. will a knit scarf be longer than a crochet one?

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    1. That is a great question! My mom (a knitter) made one of these scarves for my sister using knitting instead of crochet. I think that it came out to be about the same length - I only went 4-6 stitches wide and I think she did the same.

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  4. I ironed the Starbella before knitting it and wound it onto a paper towel core...the final product looked more polished and I'm going to do the same process again.

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    1. I love this idea! I usually unwind, flatten, and rewind as I go, carefully laying one round upon the other - it looks like a wheel when I am done. I think rolling it onto a paper towel core and ironing as I go would make a world of difference! Both the Sashay and the Starbella say not to iron, according to the label, but I imagine if you used a very low setting it would work!

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  5. May I ask what pattern you are using? Mine are not nearly so "fluffy" as yours. Thanks! =)

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    1. Thanks for your question! I followed a basic pattern that I found on YouTube when I was trying to figure out who to work with this type of yarn. Since then, I've modified it slightly as I wanted my scarves to be much longer. I usually start with a foundation stitch of four stitches, turn, and then single crochet in the three stitches - repeat until I run out of yarn. I am always turning at the end of each row, so the scarf is being crocheted in a spiral. I am not sure that this answers your question, but this is how I've crocheted the bulk of my scarves. The ones pictured here were all crocheted with more than 4 stitches - I think they were twice that, which would make them bulkier, but shorter.

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  6. Annoymous Oct 31 , if you want fluffy scarf use more stitches. I will post a picture of my scarf. My ends are knit with 9 stitches and after three rows I go to 6 or 7. It is very fluffy and looks pretty with bell looking ends. I double the yarn by folding the beginning part and the end part.

    I made a shawl with flamenco ruffle yarn and now I am working on the new design for a shawl with starbella.

    check it on http://creativefashion2.blogspot.ca/

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  7. The scarves in the pictures on this blog are very pretty and looking full. Are they shorter than the knitted ones?

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