The Problem with Boucle

I am not a fan of boucle yarns. To me they're not pretty, the baby variety snag and snap if you breathe hard on them, and the resulting work does not look attractive. Yet I keep getting boucle yarns like this one in mystery boxes and the lots I thrift. I need to deal with those issues, so I'm going to try and experiment with some boucle yarns again.

Here's a ball of Boucle from a Hobbii surprise pack. It's 60% Alpaca and 40% wool, and comes in a 1.7 oz./50 gram ball with 87 yards/80 meters. Due to the fibre content it's not something I can use for a wearable in Florida. :) I do like the color.

I found the center pull with only a little ball of yarn barf.

And here's the biggest issue I have with boucle yarn: no matter what stitch you use, you cannot see the work. It looks like astroturf.

One solution is to add one or two non-boucle yarns to the project (which, admittedly, will make it bigger, heavier and thicker.)

Now I can see the stitches.

It doesn't seem like a big thing, but being able to see the crochet work allows me to maintain an accurate stitch count.

Here's the finished basket. I had maybe two yards of the boucle left, which I'll use for gift wrapping during the holidays. As for the basket, I'm going to use it to hold my rescued balls of embroidery thread, which have outgrown their original container.

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