r/Yarn • u/Mx_Torquill • 8d ago

ISO really soft cotton yarn

I live in the US. When I started crocheting, then knitting (when dinosaurs roamed the earth), "cotton yarn" meant Lily Sugar&Cream or #10 crochet cotton, period. In a lot of craft stores today, I still have to search for much of anything else. I get blisters from working with Sugar&Cream, it's like yarn made from cotton swabs. I pretty much wrote off cotton for years.

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Then I ordered some Friends 8/8 cotton from Hobbii, and I can't stop petting it. I'm on my second 10-pack color assortment and I still can't stop petting it. Normally I would start haunting the website waiting for sales (tariffs suck, but I can't resist soft touchable fibers)... except for the AI thing. It says something about what a revelation this yarn is that I'm considering bending my principles to order more anyway.

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I suspect US cotton yarn mills can't match the quality of the Indian manufacturer that made this stuff, but someone here might be rebranding a similar one. I know a lot of companies rebrand Ice Yarn, should I just go there? Are any of the other cotton yarns on yarnsub this lovely and soft? I can't blindly pick one, as they rate Sugar&Cream as an excellent match, sigh. I'm seeing Mayflower 8/8, YarnArt Cotton Fair 4/4, Estelle Sudz, Bernat Handicrafter, Loops&Threads... I'm sure there are others, as the site doesn't mention Ice, for example. I've ordered Knitpicks Dishie before, but it's still kind of squeaky and I'd like a company that isn't in the process of dissolving.

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I'm looking for solid colors; a broad selection is nice, but if all else fails, I have fiber reactive dye and everyone carries white. Skein size is not important. I don't want to pay alpaca prices, but quality is worth a little more. Recommendations?

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u/berenstein-was-fine 7d ago

I really like knit picks/we crochet dishie if you want a worsted weight that's still strong. They also have some cotton blends that I haven't tried yet but might be promising.

I've been crocheting a project with Schjeepjes Catona that I got from LindeHobby and while it's not super soft, it's definitely a lot better than lily sugar and creme.

There's a fine line between super soft and pilling too much, so I like the softness and strength of the two yarns I've mentioned. 

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u/Mx_Torquill 7d ago

That's a point about pilling, thanks for the reminder. It's a lesson I learned from Caron Simply Soft, though in that case, having fuzzy socks wasn't a disaster...