Crochet Tips for Baby Suri. I’m going to talk about crocheting with this lovely, fluffy yarn! Baby Suri is a yarn that’s similar to Mohair. Here I’ve got a yarn with Baby Suri Alpaca 74% and 26% Mulberry Silk by Lottie Knits. This is comparable to Kid Silk Mohair yarn. It’s a lightweight yarn which is classed as a heavy lace weight. So, you’ll need a hook size between 3 -5mm depending on what type of fabric you’re aiming for. Baby Suri is often suggested as an alternative to Mohair for people that find Mohair irritating next to the skin, but it has got Alpaca in it, and I know that that is an issue for some people. However, it is an option worth trying if you know you don’t have an allergy to Alpaca but find that the Mohair is too irritating.
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Baby Suri V Kid Silk Mohair
I’ve got some work here, my “Cowl Island” pattern, which is made in Kid Silk Mohair, also by Lottie Knits in the colour-way “Oil Slick Rainbow”. Next to it, I’ve got a little sample that I’ve crocheted up in Baby Suri in the colour-way “Lichen”.
So you can see the difference, there’s slightly less of a halo with the Baby Suri but overall it has got quite a similar look. In regards to texture, I would say although the Kid Silk Mohair is very soft, the Baby Suri this has got a softer, slightly plumper feel. Lottie describes it as “kitten soft”. It reminds me of the “Teddy Bear” fabrics you can get. It feels like the yarn is a little bit denser – probably because the Mohair is laceweight and the Baby Suri is a heavy-lace but also because the core of the yarn seems to be more voluminous.
The other thing I would mention as a difference between the Kid Silk Mohair and the Baby Suri is, the distribution of fluff along the yarn strand. It is quite uneven, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it slubby, but you will get areas where there’s less fluff than others, and because this yarn has been hand-dyed is quite attractive because you can see some of the inner core of the silk coming through, which does give the stitch quite an unique texture with a slight variance of color.
As mentioned, with Baby Suri yarn, the distribution of fluff isn’t as even, however, the overall effect once crocheted up, this isn’t really noticeable as it does even itself out across the stitches. The other thing I would say that I noticed about working with this yarn is that, there’s actually very little shedding. When I’ve worked with Kid Silk Mohair in the past, you do get an awful lot of little bits of fluff coming off as you’re crocheting, they float into the air, they can get into your eyes, on your clothes and you notice as well on the work surface little fibers that have shed off. With this Baby Suri, even as I’ve been frogging, there is very little coming off it. So this might be another reason why it’s more suitable than Kid Mohair for some people because you get less chance of these particles coming off and irritating your skin, your eyes, and your nose.
Crochet Tips for Baby Suri
Swatches
I’ve crocheted up some swatches and I’ll show you those first, before I go into talking about how easy it is, or how easy it isn’t to crochet with this kind of yarn – maybe dispel some of the myths about that.
I think this kind of yarn is best worked up in a slightly larger hook size because you’re probably going to be making garments, scarves or shawls out of it so you don’t really want the fabric to be too stiff.
Single Crochet (UK Double)
So here is a little swatch that I’ve crocheted up in single crochet (UK double crochet), and I’ve used a 3.5mm hook. It does create quite a nice floaty fabric which would be great for a top. Usually, a sc crochet stitch generates quite a stiff fabric which is why it’s more commonly used in toymaking and homewares as opposed to garments.
Gauge (after washing & blocking) : 18st & 21 rows to 10cm with a 3.5mm hook.
Extended Single Crochet (UK Extended Double)
Here is a sample in extended single crochet which in my opinion is underused and underrated stitch.
Gauge (after washing & blocking) : 16st & 14 rows to 10cm with a 3.5mm hook.
Half Double Crochet (UK Half Treble)
And then I’ve got a half double crochet sample here (UK half treble), which is really nice. Hdc is a really useful stitch for making garments because it’s a quick stitch that’s not too open.
Gauge (after washing & blocking) : 18st & 11 rows to 10cm with a 3.5mm hook.
Double Crochet (UK Treble)
And then here I’ve got double (UK treble) crochet. Generally, double crochets are such long stitches that they can make quite an open fabric, especially if you’re using slightly larger hook than recommended. However, you can get away with it with this Baby Suri because the halo of fluff does fill in some of these little gaps, and helps to mesh the fabric together which I think would make it really good for a scarf, wrap, or floaty top.
Gauge (after washing & blocking) : 17st & 8 rows to 10cm with a 3.5mm hook.
Honeycomb Mesh Stitch
Here’s a more lacey and open stitch. I just used to kind of v-stitch which creates a nice meshy fabric. This would give you really good yardage of this precious Baby Suri yarn if you wanted to make a wrap, or even a kind of a throw over top.
Gauge (after washing & blocking) : 10st & 7 rows to 10cm with a 4.5mm hook.
Stitch Visibility
There is quite a widespread belief that crocheting with this kind of yarn is quite tricky. So, whilst I wouldn’t deny that it’s not as easy as crocheting with a nice smooth yarn, I also don’t actually think it’s as bad as we’ve been led to believe, especially if you are using open stitches or maybe working into spaces. If you do think you’re going to struggle with stitch visibility, you might be better off going for a stitch pattern where you are crocheting into spaces, like a mesh or shell stitch. I found that, the core of silk in the middle and with the fluff not being too dense, it wasn’t actually that difficult to spot the stitches. I didn’t have any problems at all crocheting my samples of single, half, double and treble crochets. Overall, with this Baby Suri, I don’t think stitch visibility is a particular issue.
Frogging or Ripping Back
There’s another belief that frogging this kind of yarn is really tricky. So again, I would say from my experience having sampled this Baby Suri yarn with crochet, that frogging isn’t as difficult as you may think.
The trick is to just unravel it quite slowly and gently. And of course, remembering to wind the yarn you’ve frogged back onto your ball otherwise you will end up with a big tangled mess. Every now and again, I’d get a little snag, but if I look closely, I could see that it’s just where the fluff is meshed together and if I pull that gently, it will actually come apart. So the trick is once it snags, loosen it up, pull it again, and loosen it up, pull it again. Frogging isn’t a major problem for me, as long as I was careful to not just rip, rip, rip quickly but do it quite carefully and slowly, stitch by stitch and look to see what’s caused the snag.
Having said that, occasionally, you might come to quite a badly stuck together part, especially if the yarn has previously been crocheted and frogged multiple times which seems to increase the likelihood of running into problems when fogging. Sometimes the halo of fluff can form a kind of noose around the yarn. If you look closely, you might see that there’s a little loop around the two bits of yarn which is not actually any part of the stitch. Sometimes you can loosen this by gently pulling it apart in different directions or you can actually just snip the noose with a small pair of sewing scissors.
I’m actually in the process of designing a top with this particular stitch, and I will also be using this exact yarn from Lottie Knits. If you’d like to see how that turns out and you’re interested in the pattern, please subscribe to my newsletter and YouTube channel so that I can keep you up-to-date with my latest designs. Thank you!
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