Eco Soft from Isager is a soft and lofty yarn. It is made of undyed alpaca and organic pima cotton. I just love everything about this yarn and wish I could build a house from it. It is incredibly soft and so nice to knit with.  

The skein band doesn’t specify needles as usual, so how to know what to knit from this? The yardage on the band gives you a hint, there is 125 m, approximately 135 yards per skein. This is supposedly a DK weight yarn. (if you want to know more about yarn weights, read the blogpost about substituting yarn.)

That means that almost any pattern that is written for DK weight yarn should work. However this is a DK weight yarn that knits up to even a bulky weight. That means I would look for patterns that call for DK-weight yarn combined with a strand of silk mohair. 

When I come across a completely new yarn I tend to buy a few balls or 10 and knit a swatch. Yes, indeed, knit a swatch. (If you want to know why and how to knit a swatch, read the We should all be swathing - blog post about it.) Then I wash and measure it once dried and rub it against something or let it run around wild in my bag and pick it up occasionally. Why do I do this? It’s not just a friction and durability test. As silly as it might sound, I try to listen to the yarn. It will usually tell me what it wants to become. I learned this from Elizabeth Zimmerman’s book The Opinionated Knitter. If the yarn stays quiet, I knit a hat. Now I should finally publish the pattern for it. 

Besides the hat I also designed and knitter the Vesper Sweater. It is available on Ravelry. Eco Soft is perfect for colorwork too. 

Anne Ventzel designed a sweater for kids, the Badger sweater. Of course the adult version of Badger and Bloom works just as well for this yarn. Tiina already knit hers. 

Then there is Robinia also from Anne Ventzel. Here one of the yarns is Eco Soft. This is a fun pattern that I am knitting at the moment. It has a boat neck and volume sleeves. This pattern is part of the Isager Botanica collection, that invited many well-known designers from Scandinavia to create designs for Isager yarns.

I also like the Hilly Hood by Anne Ventzel and I’d really like to test if Eco Soft would be suitable for the design. It would surely be soft! I encourage you to try this lovely yarn.

Like I said, buy a few balls, knit a swatch and a hat and see how that works out. Piia is actually knitting a hat from Eco Soft.

You will be pleasantly surprised by the softness of this yarn. 

- Enikö