Stylecraft Batik Elements – Yarn Review

I got my hands on the all new Batik Elements Swirl yarn cakes from Stylecraft Yarns, and I’m here to tell you about them.

The yarn for this post was generously provided to me free of charge by Stylecraft Yarns.

Overall impression

The same Batik yarn we’ve come to know and love in new and very interesting colors. Great for simple crochet stitches, not for textured stitches. Highly wearable.

Details

80% premium acrylic, 20% wool
DK Weight/3 light
100g balls, in cake shape
275m/300yd

Polly’s Ratings

Softness: 4 stars

It’s absolutely lovely for an acrylic and wool blend. It only gets 4 stars because we have so many super soft options now (think chenille). Less of a rating and more of a scale, this would fall just barely below Stylecraft Special DK.

Color Range: 5 stars

I think overall the chosen colors are excellent. While they aren’t particularly my favorite colors, as a reviewer I have to step back and look more objectively, and I think they’ve done a great job with them and I think there’s probably something here for most yarn enthusiasts. I hope to see some more yellow and orange in any future additions to the line and even more unique combinations (orange and purple and coral, hint hint, call it sunrise, hint hint).

Overall Quality: 5 stars

This is just like Batik DK with a wonderful bouncy spin and when they say “premium acrylic” they mean it. The baby blanket I made several years ago in Batik DK and the original Batik Elements DK is still going strong and has very minimal pilling. A million stars for quality is more like it.

Pros

• Plump, gorgeous crochet stitches
• Super interesting colors palettes that are fun and somewhat unpredictable
• Great for mixing with solid color yarns like the classic Batik DK range
• Wool content – makes this yarn more breathable and wearable
• Looks amazing in clothing items

Cons

• This yarn can be splitty
• Wool content – if you have allergies
• The colors don’t work great with textured crochet stitches
• Trickier to make work in blanket patterns

Colorways

The line includes 8 unique colorways. They’re demonstrated on the Stylecraft website in a knit sample, so I thought you might like to see them crocheted instead.

My Project

I couldn’t just work up some swatches and call this good. They sent me 8 balls of yarn! That’s enough for a blanket!

Like I said earlier in this post, simple stitches work best with a yarn that has this much going on color-wise. So, I did a not-quite granny stitch that I’ll be publishing for you when the blanket is done. I think it worked beautifully to break up the colors just a bit and did an excellent job at avoiding color pooling. I plan to join with a solid neutral color to let the square pop.

A traditional granny stitch or a moss stitch would also work fabulously (see my C2C moss stitch blanket above and get the pattern free here) as would basic sc/hdc/dc though you may get a more blocky look from those. I did try a combo of dc rows and granny stitch but even that was too much texture and got lost in all the color.

So, if you decide to give this yarn a spin, remember to keep it simple or use it as a highlight in combination with some solid colors. And if you do, please share it with me on Facebook, in my Facebook group, or tag me on Instagram or TikTok.