I rate Olivin by Hobbii 7/10. This yarn offers good value for money. It comes in 18 colours, is classified as weight number two (fine yarn) and has a recommended needle size of 3.5mm (US size 4). We may as well call Olivin a dupe for Allino by BC Garn as it has the same composition (50% linen, 50% cotton) and an almost identical gauge. Furthermore, when you compare the available colours, you’ll notice that Olivin’s selection bears an uncanny ressemblance to a subset of Allino Garn’s 33-colour palette.
On Hobbi’s website Olivin is priced at 6.80 euros a skein whereas Allino is at 8 euros a skein. As always with Hobbii’, you can often get a substantial discount when buying four or more skeins. Nor do they ever seem to run out of a pretext for a sale. As I am writing, a “spring cleaning offer” is live. In short, the price difference between Allino and Olivin isn’t always the same. In my opinion, it is well worth waiting for some sale on Allino from BC Garn for reasons I will detail below. However, I still recommend Olivin as a yarn that is both sustainable and enjoyable to wear and knit with.
More like an 85% match
According to yarnsub.com, Olivin is a 95 % match to Allino by BC Garn. I tend to disagree. I ordered some Olivin yarn a few weeks ago, in colourways Magenta (No. 9) and rose (No. 8). – and I was fairly disappointed. I don’t like this rose shade at all! As for the magenta yarn, it isn’t magenta. The colour shown on Hobbii’s website and what I got are two different colours. Olivin’s “Magenta” has a reddish-purple hue which I would describe as grenat rather than true magenta.
According to Hobbii, Olivin’s “carefully curated colour palette is mostly subdued,” with pastel shades “predominant,” adding “a touch of sophistication and timelessness.” I agree that the palette is indeed subdued, but I expected the pink yarn to be much more pastel than what I received.
It’s possible that Hobbii is taking a few shortcuts compared to BC Garn, whose yarn is spun and dyed in Italy. The end result is okay but not stunning. After all, the price tag difference has to come from somewhere! When placed side by side with Allino, Olivin simply doesn’t compare colourwise. Allino’s colours are more nuanced, richer, and pop much better.
Yarnsub says that both Allino and Olivin are 3 or more plied, BC Garn doesn’t provide further information, nor does Olivin. But I am fairly sure they have not been plied in the exact same way – or perhaps the cotton quality differs – or…something. I can’t pinpoint the exact difference, but to the touch, Olivin doesn’t feel the same as Allino. Olivin is softer and gentler to the hands but the fabric it creates doesn’t seem as durable over time.
I don’t know how yarnsub.com calculates its matching percentages. My guess is that it is powered by an algorythm that ponders all publicly available yarn parameters rather than comparing knitted swatches. . All in all, Olivin is still good value for money. I stand by my 7/10 rating. But from my perspective as a knitter, Olivin is more like an 85 % match to Allino.
AsI mentioned earlier, I don’t appreciate at all the “sophistication” of Olivin’s pink shade. It doesn’t inspire me at all! So I decided to repurpose some Allino Yarn I had bought last year in colourway 12, a light pink that appears milikier on BC Garn’s website than it actually is in real life. With that settled, I started swatching, using Olivin fake magenta alongside the pastel pink from Allino. I have now knitted the entire back panel of a self-designed spring top. It’s based on this experience that I further review Olivin. And there are quite a few good surprises in store!
Olivin’s qualities
A dye that doesn’t bleed
I tossed my final swatch into the washing machine, using my usual detergent on a normal programme (including spin) at 40°C, with a regular load of laundry. I let it dry flat.The swatch shrank slightly, just like a swatch I had previously knitted with Allino yarn. But the dye didn’t bleed at all. Hobbii recommends washing this yarn at 30°C (86°F), but I didn’t follow that advice, as I try to avoid washing items at such low temperatures.
A fairly solid yarn
After selecting the colours, I did several swatches. I didn’t swatch just for gauge, I was selecting a stitch pattern. I finally settled for a two-row ridge check and a 3.25 mm needle (US size 3). And when I compared the gauge stitch to the gauge stitch from a pattern I was using as inspiration, I started panicking I would run out of yarn. So I unraveled all of my swatches and kept using the exact same yarn and it is with this yarn that I casted on my project. When after a 7cm long 1/1 rib, I decided I had far too much stitches for my back side, I….casted on with the very same yarn.
Now repeatedly using, reusing and re-reusing he same yarn is usually the undoing of cheaper yarns. But in this case, it wasn’t. That said, I don’t recommend doing the same as you are not giving your yarn the chance to truly shine. In my back panel, my 1X1 ribbing looks somewhat frumpy and that could well be due to how many times I reused the same skein.
One thing this yarn does tend to do is to split very slighly. We’re not talking anything tragic – it’s a wee little tendency to split. Aka this yarn might not be the perfect choice for an absolute beginner. I’ve knitted with cotton yarns and cotton blends at much higher price points where the splitting issue was far, far worse. I am by no means an expert in crochet, but my appreciation is that this yarn seems perfectly workable. I made a few mistakes and fixed them using crochet, it went smoothly.
I did come across a few knots- maybe one per skein or every other skein? But at this price point, that’s really not much.
A nice drape
I am using a stitch pattern that gives me a blocked gauge of 24.6 stitches for 40 rows. Olivin’s row gauge is 31 rows for stockinette stitch, Allino’s is 30 row. That I need 40 rows is due to the stitch pattern and the smaller needle size I am using. I didn’t bother to knit a stockinette swatch in Olivin, so I can’t give you a complete information on this topic. But I am very happy with the drape I am getting for my top. It wouldn’t at all be the same if I was using a 100% cotton yarn. And I would definitely getting even more drape if I was knitting in stockinette instead of this 2 rows ridge check pattern.
On Hobbii’s website, there are currently nine patterns, including 2 shawls and a scarf. I think this yarn is a really good choice for such projects.
You get the (pretty much) the same gauge as with Allino
In my opinion, you can use both of them in the same project without caring too much if you get the exact same gauge or not. After the ribbing, I did a few rows using exclusively Olivin (pink and magenta) and I got the same stitch gauge as the following Olivin magenta/light pink BC garn rows.
When looking for a pattern to knit with Olivin, my bet is that any design knitted with Allino from BC Garn would be a good fit.
Unsolicited Knitting Advice 