Gazzal Yarn Review

I have talked about this brand briefly in some of my patterns, but here is everything you need to know about it in one place! I happened upon Gazzal yarn, when I found myself wanting a light weight cotton fiber. I really love making lace like patterns that are spring and summer friendly, and in my experience the only easily accessible cotton that I could find was Lily Sugar and Cream, which is always available at Michaels and Joann. Now don’t get me wrong, a part of me will always love Lily Sugar and Cream yarn, but my only issue with it is that it is weight 4 yarn. Worsted Weight yarn is amazing for a great number of projects, but I don’t think Spring and Summer projects fall under that category.

You might be thinking that, although I couldn’t find it at Michaels or Joann, perhaps a small business yarn store would carry a lighter weight cotton. You are completely right, they typically do carry a wide variety of cotton weights, and as much as I would love to support my local yarn stores, the only problem is that they are very expensive, and rightfully so might I add. Although I do not dye/produce my own yarn, I am aware of how difficult and time consuming it is, so yes those smaller brand yarns should be the price that they are! They are beautiful and amazing, and if I had the money to buy them I would, but the reality is that I just don’t have that kind of money, and I don’t think I am alone in this.

Because of this, I am always on the hunt for affordable new yarn brands, which I started to understand is only going to happen online. Buying yarn online is scary as you cannot judge the really color or texture in real life, well I am taking that risk for both of us haha. Back to the original story: I needed a light weight cotton!

My boyfriend and I practically live off of Amazon Prime, so although I had never thought to look for Yarn through Amazon I thought I would give it a try and that is how I found Gazzal. I was skeptical at first, one, because I had never heard of it, and two, because when I tried to google them, they don’t appear to have any kind of company presence online. The truth is that they do actually have a presence, you just need to do a bit of digging to find them. Gazzal is a Turkish based company originating in Istanbul, which would explain why they are a little difficult to track down in the US.

I have gathered some of their platforms here should you wish to check them out and or follow them!

Website 
Instagram
Facebook
Pinterest
Twitter

Yarn Reviews

As of now I have only purchased two different Gazzal Yarns (their website suggests that they current have about 20 different yarn selections). The two that I have tried are their Baby Cotton and Baby Cotton XL, so those will be the two that I will be reviewing today (should I try any more of their yarn I will add those reviews on here at a later date)

Baby Cotton

Colors Purchased: Beige 3437
Weight: No 2. Sport/Baby (4 ply)
Material: 60% Cotton/ 40% Acrylic
Length: 1 Skein = Approximately 180 Yards (165 Meters) (Some colors come in longer skeins)
Recommended Hook Size: 2-3mm
Recommended Needle Size: 3-4mm
Gauge: 28 Rows of 24 Stitches =10cm x10cm Square

Texture:
One thing is for sure is that this yarn is VERY soft. To be honest when I first started looking for a light weight cotton, I thought I was only interested in a 100% cotton, turns out I was more interested in the weight of the yarn, because I purchased this yarn without even realizing that it wasn’t 100% cotton. As stated above this yarn is a blend of Cotton and Acrylic and to be honest I’m pretty happy that I didn’t notice this just in case it would have deterred me from purchasing it and giving it a chance.

Let’s be honest, acrylic yarn is very affordable and fluffy, but can definitely have a scratchy texture to it. Likewise, cotton often has a very smooth texture but can be a bit stiff, so mixing these two fibers gets you a yarn that is smooth and not too fluffy, but not too stiff, a very good combination if you ask me.

Color Match:
As stated above, I have only purchased one color of the Baby Cotton so far, so I can’t sufficiently comment on the color match yet. However, with the one example that I have now I can say that the color I received was incredibly close to the color that I expected to receive based on the picture on Amazon. I plan on writing a more in depth post all about color matching and will post a link on here when I get to it!

Workability:
Generally I found this to be an incredibly nice yarn to work with. As with any yarn sometimes it will snag and the yarn will “separate” a little bit, but that didn’t happen very often and if it did, it was my fault for not being careful enough, I don’t believe it had to do with the quality of the yarn. I used this yarn on my “Ariel Crochet Top Pattern” and I think that it creates a very nice even stitch. It is also very “frog” friendly, I usually have to take apart my WIPS at some point or another and I didn’t notice that this yarn lost its integrity overtime as I did so, it stayed very much intact after being frogged multiple times which I was very pleased with.

Affordability:
Personally, I always try to shop for yarn on a budget and I found this yarn to be very affordable. I purchased mine on amazon, which was selling for 5 Skeins at $16, about $3.20 per skein which I think is very reasonable considering the quality of the yarn. In addition Amazon shipping rates are typically not very high, and if you are a prime member the shipping is free!

Baby Cotton XL

Colors Purchased: Pinkish Orange-3412/Yellow-3413/Pink-3411/Pink-3435/Yellow-3417/Dark Blue-3438/Light Blue-3429
Weight: No 3. DK Weight
Material: 50% Cotton/ 50% Acrylic
Length: 1 Skein = Approximately 114 Yards (105 Meters)
Recommended Hook Size: 3-4mm
Recommended Needle Size: 4-4.5mm
Gauge: 30 Rows of 22 Stitches =10cm x 10cm Square

Texture:
I think because the Baby Cotton XL has a slightly higher Acrylic composition, it is actually softer than the regular Baby Cotton. I actually tried this yarn before the Baby Cotton and was so surprised at how soft it really was. I had recently got my hands on some We are Knitters Pima Cotton which after only ever using Lily Sugar and Cream, totally turned my world around when it came to cotton yarn. Their yarn is incredibly soft and I honestly think that this Gazzal Baby Cotton XL comes incredibly close to it.

Color Match:
I happened to have bought many more colors of this yarn than the Baby Cotton so I feel I have a much more accurate opinion of the color match of this yarn. For the most part, I was very happy with the color match on the colors that I purchased, almost all of them were what I was expecting with the exception of the Yellow 3413 and Pink 3411.

The Yellow that I received looked a lot more “neon” than I was expecting. Maybe it is just me but I thought that the color in the photo on amazon looked like a nice pastel yellow, but the yellow that I received seems to have a lot more greenish neon tones than the picture. Much like the the yellow, the pink that I received was also a brighter color than I was expecting. The picture on amazon looked much more of a dustier rose color than the one that I got. I was a bit disappointed with these colors, but I’m sure I will find a use for them as my style evolves.

Workability:

I found this to be a very enjoyable yarn to work with, partially because it is so soft haha. This yarn was a little bit more susceptible to “separating” than the baby cotton, but that didn’t happen very often and if it did, again it was my fault for not being careful enough, I don’t believe it had to do with the quality of the yarn. I also used this yarn on my “Ariel Crochet Top Pattern” and I think that it creates a very nice even stitch. It is also very “frog” friendly, I usually have to take apart my WIPS at some point or another and I didn’t notice that this yarn lost its integrity overtime as I did so, it stayed very much intact after being frogged multiple times which I was very pleased with.

Affordability:
Again, I always try to shop for yarn on a budget and I found this yarn to be very affordable. I purchased mine on amazon, which was selling for 3 Skeins at $12, about $4 per skein which I think is very reasonable considering the quality of the yarn. In addition Amazon shipping rates are typically not very high, and if you are a prime member the shipping is free!

Where to Buy Gazzal?

Their website has a very simple layout, although a tad confusing to navigate. If you are looking to browse their yarn selection, you are going to have to go to the “Hand Knitting” tab. They have some very beautiful yarns up on their site; however there does not appear to be an option to actually purchase any of their products from their site (if I am wrong about this, please correct me haha). However, there are several places where you can find their products for purchase.

Amazon: 
Personally, I have only purchased any Gazzal Yarn from Amazon, they do not have their entire line of yarn options available on amazon, but they do have their cottons available which is what brought me to them in the first place. The cool thing (or at least I think it is cool) about purchasing their cotton yarns on Amazon is that they come in packs! I don’t know about you guys but almost everything I ever make needs multiple ball/skeins of yarn. The only negative side I can see for this, is that since Gazzal does not list any prices for their yarns on their website, I am unaware of the price per ball for their yarns, leading you to questions if the price of the pack of yarn is really “worth” it, which I will come back to when I go into more depth of my actual review of the yarn itself.

Pros:

• Yarn comes in packs (amount of skeins depends on type of yarn purchased)
• If you are a Prime Member, Shipping is FREE!

Cons:

• “Value/Worth” of the packs is unknown as I do not know an average price per skein.
• Not all of their yarn selections are available on Amazon.

Etsy:

While many of us have purchased something from Etsy during our lives, I have never purchased yarn from Etsy so personally, I don’t have a lot of knowledge about doing so. However, generally I would like to think that Etsy sellers are trust worthy people. In my own personal opinion I think there are a lot of factors that come into play when purchasing materials rather than a finished product from Etsy…

Pros:

• Etsy has a lot more variety of Gazzal Products (from what I can tell you can find all of their yarn selections on etsy)

Cons:

• “Value/Worth” of the packs is unknown as I do not know an average price per skein/ prices may vary drastically per
  seller.

Hobium:

I stumbled upon Hobium a few weeks ago and was very intrigued. Not only do they have a wide variety of Gazzal products, they generally have a lot of international brands of yarns that I had never heard of before. Personally, I think everything on here is very reasonably priced at face value, most of the yarns look very high quality in a wide range of beautiful colors. The only downside of this website is the shipping costs. To be fair, this is another company based in Turkey, therefore if you are making an order to be delivered to the US, it is expected that shipping will be a bit pricey. I had started making an order on here when I first found them and when I got to checkout, the shipping cost actually came out to be more than the yarn itself, so I decided to forego the order.  So if you don’t mind the high shipping rates, I think they would be worth a try.

Pros:

• Wide selection of affordable Gazzal yarns (as well as other international yarn brands)
• Fast 1-2 day shipping (the website claims)

Cons:

• High shipping costs

Those are a few of the places that I have found that Gazzal Yarn is available. In summary if you are looking for a light weight cotton yarn I highly recommend giving Gazzal a try! It is of equal quality of “higher end” brands but at an incredibly affordable price! If you chose to try them out or already have, let me know what you think!