In this post I will tell all about the yarn that gives my animals their characteristic looks and that is a big part of my recognizable style. Léttlopi wool.
This yarn is my all time favorite. It is very rough and rustic and fuzzy by itself. When I started making crochet animals I first used other kinds of yarn, mostly mixed kinds of wool, alpaca, merino and polyamide. Some gave a good result, others looked awful.
Texture is very important to me. I’m also an illustrator and my specialty is painting with acrylic paint (it used to be oil based paint but I found acrylic to be more modern and suitable for the work I make). In my paintings you can clearly see the brush strokes and the colours don’t always blend perfectly. The paint is very visible.
For my crochet animals, I like to have that same rustic and living style. That is why Lopi yarn is so suitable for my designs. It has a wild look to it and you can see the sheep hair. It comes in many beautiful powerful colours. It is 100% wool, so it is 100% living!
The yarn is very suitable to crochet with and I love working with it. I always use a hook E/3,5 mm. The Léttlopi is for 50 grams ca 100 m/109 yd. The yarn has a good grip on my hook and is very flexible. In my opinion it’s more pleasant to work with than cotton or acrylic. What is very handy about working with this yarn, is that it has a fuzzy look, but still is suitable for making a magic ring. Also, when you have an unchancy part, you can take it apart without too much effort. Especially when designing that is very convenient and saves a lot of yarn. Because of the fuzzy texture, gabs are less visible if you by accident crocheted too loose at some parts and the decrease and increase stitches become pretty much invisible. Another big advantage of this yarn is, the colour changes look very neat because of the texture of the wool.
There are some things that are good to know when you’re working with this wool. Because this yarn is 100% wool, I’ve noticed the thickness of the thread can vary a bit. I don’t mind it at all, because it doesn’t have a major effect on the outcome of your animal. Keep in mind that when assembling a doll and the thread has gone through some stress already, don’t pull it to hard, it’ll loose it’s strength.
I added a few images above to show the beautiful texture of the yarn and the result. Below you can see the texure of the colours. You can see the sheep hair very clearly in some colours, which gives my dolls their rustic look.
To sum it all together, this yarn is perfect to crochet with if you like a rustic and fuzzy look. It gives a doll a beautiful rough texture but is neat at the same time. There are a few little things you have to keep in mind when working with this yarn but they haven’t got any effect on the outcome of your animal. The result will be beautiful.
