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If you haven’t already jumped on the Lion Brand Mandala yarn bandwagon and have never used a smaller weight yarn I am going to share my personal review of it for you.  I am receiving no compensation for my review and, as always, will never recommend any product unless I truly can support it.  I have purchased many, many cakes (more than I’d like to admit to!) of the Mandala yarn for this review.  If you’ve seen pics of my craft yarn room or seen my Facebook live broadcasts every week, you know I spend a lot of time with many different types of yarn.

Lion Brand Mandala Yarn

I started working with this yarn shortly after it was released early this year and feel I have spent enough “quality time” with it to provide a detailed review you can trust.  I have made several different and varying projects with it including clothing, accessories and blankets.  I have designed two of my own patterns with this yarn, the Sassy Autumn Ribbed Crochet Cowl and the Aurora Skies Ribbed Baby Blanket.  There are other patterns currently in development including fingerless gloves to match the Sassy Autumn Cowl in which I will be controlling the colors.

The Mandala yarn is a light 3 weight yarn.  I would say I have never been very drawn to the light weight yarn in the past unless making a baby related item.  In fact, my good friend and pattern tester even stated she had seen them and didn’t buy one because she didn’t typically crochet with the lighter weight yarn either so didn’t know what to make with it.  However, I asked her to pattern test my cowl and she was pleasantly surprised by the Mandala.

It is self-striping but has a gradient appearance or more gradual color changes.  You can see how gradually the colors change by the picture I took of my disassembled cake. The abrupt color changes of the Caron Cakes and Sweet Rolls can be a little off-putting for some and they will control or cut the colors if a color will change in the middle of a row.

The recommended hook size is an H or 5.0 mm.  The fiber is 100% acrylic with a yardage of 590 and weight of 5.3 oz per cake.  The colors are wide ranging from jewel tones to bright children’s colors and even classic colors.  The colors are very vibrant and eye-catching and even the cakes with more autumnal coloration have some pop of bright color to draw the eye!

Some complaints I have heard or read is that the yarn feels scratchy but in my experience the yarn softens as you work with it and it certainly becomes softer after washing.  Another great positive of this yarn is the easy care instructions — machine wash and dry.  I do recommend that you wash and block your projects after completing.

There can be some slight variance to the thickness of the yarn throughout the cake but nothing that ends up being noticeable in my finished project.

I am a big fantasy / science fiction fan so I have to admit I get a huge kick out of the wonderful names they have as well — Wizard, Centaur, Unicorn, Thunderbird, Genie, Spirit, Gnome, Phoenix, Serpent, Sphinx (my personal favorite color), Wood Nymph, Chimera, Pegasus, Pixie, Valkyrie and Warlock!

Sadly, the cakes are currently sold out due to consumer demand directly from Lion Brand.  However, in the United States they are being sold at Walmart stores for the great price of $4.97!  A fantastic price when you consider my Sassy Autumn Cowl takes only one cake!  What a great and inexpensive gift to give this year for Christmas!  If your store doesn’t carry them you can also order them online and have them delivered to your local store for free pickup.  Great news for those of you in the U.K. — they are now available at woolwarehouse.co.uk!

I have been extremely happy with the Mandala yarn by Lion Brand and hope they release some new colors soon!  Hint, hint Lion Brand…..certainly wishful thinking on my part that anyone at Lion Brand would read this post.  A girl can dream, right?

care instructions:  Machine washable and dryable

weight: Light 3

yardage: 590 yd / 540 m

net weight: 5.3 oz/cake / 150 g

Fiber content:  Acrylic

Recommended hook:  H-8 (5mm)

Recommended needle: 5 (3.75mm)