In the Indonesian Mochila Facebook group you see beautiful bags made with polyester yarn, so that made me curious about the yarn. I really wanted to see and feel this yarn with my own eyes and hands.
In Indonesia, cotton is hard to come by and it is very expensive, that is why they use polyester yarn. The word polyester sounds like plastic to me. So I thought that must be very stiff and hard to work with.
Thanks to Catlien Zoet, I have some left overs of 3 different polyester yarns. Catlien, who lives in Indonesia, sent the left overs to my sister in law in Jakarta. My parents in law, who were visiting them, brought it back to the Netherlands for me. Thank you so much for doing this Catlien.
First impression
The first thing I noticed, is that the ends of the yarns feel hard and are black. When you cut this yarn, it unravels. To prevent this you can make a knot in the end or you hold the end of the yarn in fire to melt the ends together. That is why the end is black.
The second thing I noticed, is that all three yarns are twined in a Z-twist. Recommended cotton is twined in an S-twist.
Time to test
After the first impression I started crocheting with the yarns.
I used a 2 mm hook and I carried 4 yarns.
I tested ‘Poly Apple’ first. The sheen on the ‘Poly Apple’ is the nicest of the three yarns. When you look at ‘Poly Apple’ you would think it is the same size as ‘Schachenmayr Catania’.
When I started crocheting with ‘Poly Apple’, I didn’t like it at all. It is incredibly hard to work with this yarn. It was curling around itself a lot, it splits a lot and it felt very hard, a bit like plastic. 2 rounds, with this yarn, are 1.2 cm high. With ‘Catania’ 2 rounds are 0.9 cm high.
I made a coaster with this yarn.
My next test was with ‘Poly Cherry’. ‘Poly Cherry’ looks slightly thinner than ‘Catania’. To my surprise it was much nicer to work with the ‘Poly Cherry’ than I expected.
The yarn did not curl so much and it didn’t split. The stitches are exactly the same size as with ‘Catania’. 2 rounds, with this yarn, are 0.9 cm high. The crocheting feels softer than with ‘Poly Apple’.
I made two little bottoms and crocheted them together and closed it with a zipper. It became a wallet.
The ‘Poly Mamirli’ looks a lot thicker and it feels really soft. Maybe that is because it is loosely twined. It took some time to get used to this yarn. This yarn is also curling around itself a lot and it splits a lot. The longer I crocheted with it, the better I could handle the splitting.
Because this yarn is loosely twined, it covers the yarns you carry very good.
2 rounds, with this yarn, are 1.1 cm high, so it is a thicker than ‘Catania’.
I made a small basket with this yarn.
Conclusion
With all three yarns you can make a firm bag.
I like ‘Poly Cherry’ best. It is the easiest of all three yarns to work with and the size of the stitches is the same as with ‘Catania’ (mercerised cotton yarn, 125 meter per 50 gram).
My second choice would be ‘Poly Mamirli’. Keep in mind that your bag will be bigger with this yarn.
Please let me know what your experience is with these yarns, in the comments.