Knitting with cheap wool: evaluation of Friends Wool Medium from Hobbii

I followed through with my plan of experimenting knitting with inexpensive non superwash wool. I waited for black Friday to get a deal, but having visited Hobbii’s website more often, I realise I needn’t have bothered. This wool is almost always on some sort of sale, especially when you are buying pullover quantities. As of today, Hobbii’s Friends Wool Medium is at 2.65 euros per 50g. I live in Switzerland, which my IP address indicates. I’m unsure if people elsewhere encounter different (lower !) pricing, but it wouldn’t surprise me much if they did.

I I purchased 10 skeins of Friends Wool Medium and I have begun replicating my most-worn pullover, a red 100% acrylic V-necked sweater with a raglan construction. This time, I am going for a V-necked sweater, red, 100% wool, with set-in sleeves construction. For the design, I am using the book 6000+ pullover possibilities : Interchangeable Options for Custom Knitted Sweaters by Melissa Leapman, first published in 2017.

According to Hobbii, this wool is ideal for stranded knitting. I can see why they would say that : colourwork would conveniently conceal its major drawback! When knitted in a single colour in plain stockinette as I am doing for my pullover, you notice that the resulting fabric is not even: some sort of lines form, like if you were rowing out. Trust me : I don’t row out. My knitting is in fact very even. But not with this wool. If I was doing stranded colourwork, it likely would be perfect : you wouldn’t notice anything. Do I agree with Hobbii that this wool is indeed ideal for stranded knitting ? Yes. This isn’t superwash wool and this isn’t merino and doing colourwork with it would be much easier than merino wool, espcially easier than with the ubiquitous superwash merino wool (See : Knitting Advice Nr. 10 : Don’t use merino wool for stranded colourwork (some wools are much easier to knit with)).
While Friends Wool Medium might not be as well suited for colourwork as Shetland or Norwegian wool is (in my opinion), Friends Wool Medium is definitely fit for the job. It is also softer than Shetland or Norwegian wool, a factor that I know many knitters view as important. Therefore yes, I do recommend it. The downside is that this wool comes in only 50 different colours, which of course is a far cry from the extensive palettes of Shetland and Norwegian brands.

The advantages of Friends Wool Medium

While an uneven fabric is a major drawback, Friends Wool Medium actually has a lot going for it. First the colour : I chose the colour Tomato and it’s a lovely red that retains its colour after wahsing (I blocked a swatch). It is soft, knot-free (a major advantage and often a significant problem in lower-priced yarn) and it doesn’t split (another common issue in lower-priced yarns). Friends Wool Medium is a 4-ply wool, which makes it firm and sturdy. It’s got a good stitch definition. According to Hobbii, you can full it, should you wish to. This, In addition to the fact that their washing instructions only recommend handwashing your knits, makes me confident that this wool is non superwash. Which is exactly what I am looking for. All things considered, Friends Wool Medium is a rather good option for cheap wool. Previously, I have knitted with different wools at the same price tag, but they all came with knots, were splitty, etc. Nightmarish! I have also knitted with wools that were at a higher price tag, mostly wool blends, that produced a similar knitting experience to Friends Wool. That’s why I think Friends Wool Medium is a good value overall. It’s a good choice for colourwork, especially if you are looking for a soft wool. It’s also a very good option for knitting winter outerwear on a budget, a much better one than acrylic (wet acrylic keeps you cold, see Knitting Advice Nr. 9: Acrylic & co are not suitable for outer winter garment (wet plastic doesn’t keep you warm)).

Obviously, I would very much prefer for Friends Wool Medium to produce an even fabric in stockinette. Single colour stockinette is the^backbone of my knitwear and that of many designers! Nevertheless, after swatching and noticing the unevenness issue, I still decided to knit an entire pullover with it. I took a picture of my project, in an effort to show you how it looks like (see below), but my camera being what it is… So let’s try with words. As I said, it appears as if you were rowing out. Yet it’s not exactly as if you were actually rowing out : it’s not on every other row and it’s not throughout the row (or round). And some wools do produce (on purpose) such an uneven knit. You can usually tell this will be the case when the thread itself is uneven. This isn’t the case with this wool : on sight, it appears totally regular. This “rowing out” -like appearance is probably due to how the wool is spun and plied. Hence I decided I would call it “a rustic look” and go for it.
If I have enough yarn left after knitting my pullover, I will try swatching with a different stitch and see if this uneven structure becomes less noticeable. This is not the end of my assessment of Friends Wool Medium either. I will tell you how it fares when washed several times, if it starts pilling or not, etc. I will let you know if 10 skeins was enough for my project or not.
What will remain a mystery, however, is which breed of sheep (or several? ) they are using to produce this wool. The label only tells us that it’s been “made with love in Turkey”, which is sweet but not very informative! I read all the site’s content about this wool in English and in German and nowhere is a breed indicated. There is also a QR code on the skein’s sleeve, but it only takes you back to their website. Sheep breed unknown it is. The customers comment on this wool’s solidity and softness, two features that I guess the brand will be keen to maintain.

Sustainable Knitting

HobbiI’s Friend Wool Medium is OEKO-TEX certified, which is a further positive aspect of this wool. Although not as rigorous as the organic GOTS-Certification, the OEKO-TEX certification attests that this wool surpasses the minimum international standards for potentially harmful chemical substances. In theory, leather and all textile production can be oeko-tex certified. In practice, very few companies are willing to guarantee that their products fulfill the quality standards an OEKO-TEX certification implies. I must say I am rather surprised that Hobbii – with a low price point – is proving a level of commitment to the production of sustainable wool, at least for its own brand production. Other famous wool brands, such as Cascade, produce similar wools but with no engagement towards sustainability. On Lovecrafts.com, Cascade 220 non superwash, same weight as Hobbi Friends Medium (weight 4), is at 14.49 euros for 100g and 200m. Which is equivalent to 7.24 euros for 100m. For 100m, 50g, Hobbi Friends Medium, at its highest price, is 4.45 euros. So that’s a huge price difference and yet Cascade 220 is not OEKO-TEX certified.

I am working towards a TKGA certification and Cascade 220 is one of the wools that many people use to knit their swatches for the Level 1 certification. I myself finally settled for Cascade 220. So I do have quite a bit of experience with this wool. As Hobbii Friends Medium, Cascade 220 is soft yet solid, has a good stitch definition and hold its colours well. Unlike Hobbii Friends Medium, Cascade 220 does give you an even fabric. An even fabric is something you absolutely need when you want to assess your progress or obtain a certification by the TKGA. But when you don’t need an even stockinette fabric, are doing colourwork or another stitch pattern ? I’d definitely go for Friends Wool Medium instead of Cascade 220. Because, as I have previously stressed, I DON’T WANT my legacy to be persistent organic pollutants and sick people So to me, the fact that Cascade 220 is not OEKO-TEX certified is a big deal. I looked at my skein sleeves closely, to be sure, and browsed their own website, but no, no certification whatsoever. In fact, I didn’t find a single word by Cascade mentioning some kind of engagement towards a non toxic wool processing. Too bad.

Update Nr 1 : number of obtainable colours lower than advertised

The knitter’s nightmare: running out of wool as their project is almost finished. And yes, that’s me right now. Andthe lovely tomatoe colour is currently unavailable (and has been unavailable for weeks). making buying more impossible. I started with 10 skeins for a size L pullover, but I’m just one skein short. Not only does Hobbii not have he tomato colour in stock, shockingly they’re out of stock for 34 other colours (out of 56!). Worse, these colours have been gone for ages now.
So I’m stuck. None of the remaining colours complement the tomatoe one, as they even lack basic neutrals like withe or navy! You can sign up for restock notifications, but so far, I have only been receiving tons of ads in my mailbox and absolutely no news about when they plan to get them back in stock. That’s really subpar customer service. Considering this issue, I no longer agree with Hobbii’s claim that this wool is a great choice for colourwork knitting.

Speaking of sales, they’re currently having a Valentine’s Day sale, but there’s no need to rush – they’re always have some promotion running. Just before this, it was the “January sales,” and so on. And if you do order, be aware that restocking appears to be a low priority, even for their own brand. Too bad! It might be just an out-of-the-ordinary glitch in their supply chain, but if so, they could at least be transparent and provide us with a likely restocking date.

Reference

• Rowing out: What it is and how to fix it by Talvi Knits (Susanna Winter) – Please note that these indications, though entirely correct, cannot in any way improve the uneveness of a knit when the issue is not the bad tension of the knitter but the way in which a wool has been spun/twisted.