Come check out the beautiful yarns I got from Ice Yarns!  See how their yarns compare to other popular brands, and what I think of the quality, variety, and price.

Recently, Ice Yarns reached out to me and offered to send me a few of their yarns to try out and review.  I had never bought their yarns before, but I decided to give them a try and see what their yarns are like.

The yarn in this post was sent to me by Ice Yarns (thank you!), but all opinions stated are my own.

So let’s get into the review!

Quality

First off, Ice Yarns is based in Turkey.  I have noticed that of all the acrylic yarns I have tried, the ones made in Turkey tend to be a little nicer quality than many of the acrylic yarns made in China.  I don’t know why that is, or what makes the difference, but acrylics made in Turkey consistently seem to feel a bit nicer.  I have not knit or crocheted much with the yarns I got yet, but from the look and feel alone, they seem to be of good quality.

Variety

One thing that Ice Yarns has that most US brands do not is a huuuuuuge variety!

Ice Yarns has over 5,000 yarns available on their website. ???? That includes many different types of all-purpose yarns (like acrylics), wool yarns, alpaca yarns, eyelash yarns, variegated and self-striping yarns (they have tons of those), cake yarns, chainette yarns, and even superwash merino!

Many brands in the US have a few of each of those basic types of yarns, but they do not generally have very many cotton or other plant fiber yarns that work well for summer garments.  Ice Yarns has 130 different lines of summer-friendly yarns, including fibers like cotton, bamboo, viscose, linen, silk, and more.

This is really helpful for those of us who live in warmer climates and can’t wear those cozy wool sweaters for much of the year. ????

But don’t worry, browsing through 5,000 yarns doesn’t have to be overwhelming.  All of their yarns are divided into categories and tags, so you can find exactly what you’re looking for.  (Want an anti-pill yarn?  Just click on the “anti-pilling” tag to view all of those.)

Price

If I had to choose one particular thing that I like most about Ice Yarns, it would have to be their prices!  Their yarns are very affordably priced, and are usually less expensive than comparable yarns that are available in US craft stores.

One major difference is how you order the yarn.  For most of their yarns, you cannot order yarn by the skein.  Instead, you order a pack of skeins.  Depending on the size of the skein, some yarns come in packs of 2, packs of 4, packs of 6, or even packs of 8.  Their site is very helpful, though, and gives both the price per pack, and what that ends up costing for each skein.

Here’s the catch:

These yarns are not shipped straight from a US warehouse, but are shipped all the way from Turkey.  So the shipping costs are much higher than we are used to seeing when we order things from US-based yarn companies.

But even when you factor in the higher-priced shipping, these yarns still come out at a lower cost than the major US brands.

Later on in this post, I’ll show you how they compare, and how much money you could save by ordering from Ice Yarns.

First, let’s look at each of the yarns I got in my shipment.  I’ll probably do a full review on each of these yarns once I have used them in a project, but for now, here’s a brief overview of each yarn I received:

Favorite Worsted

This is a great basic, worsted-weight, all-purpose acrylic yarn.  It has a soft, smooth feel to it; a little fuzzy, with no plasticky feel at all.  (That’s totally a word, right? ????)

I got the Powder Pink colorway, which is a soft blush pink.  Although the color name is not listed on the yarn labels, it is marked on the plastic package that the skeins come in.  This yarn is available in 38 different colors.

Favorite Worsted comes in 100 gram skeins, with 229 yards per skein.  It is sold in packs of 4, which cost $4.99 per pack, bringing the cost per skein to $1.25.

Camilla Cotton

I can’t wait to use this yarn in a summer project!  It’s made from 100% mercerized cotton, so it has a pretty sheen to it that ordinary cotton yarns do not have.

Some other mercerized cottons that I have tried tend to be stiff and rope-like, but this one is soft and pliable.

Camilla Cotton is a #2 Fine or Sport Weight yarn, and comes in 50 gram skeins, with 136 yards per skein.  One pack of this yarn contains 6 skeins, and sells for $7.99.  This brings the cost per skein to $1.33.

Did I mention that Camilla Cotton comes in 48 different colors?!

Cotton Bamboo Light

Summer yarns made from plant fibers are hard to find in US craft stores, but Ice Yarns has a bunch of them!

Cotton Bamboo Light is a #3 Light or DK Weight blend of, you guessed it, cotton and bamboo.  The bamboo fibers in this yarn give it a bit of sheen, and from the feel of this yarn, I think it will have a lovely drape when worked into a project.

The colorway I got is called Dark Cream, but Cotton Bamboo Light comes in a total of 29 different colors.

This yarn comes in packs of 4 skeins, and costs $8.99 per pack, which brings the cost per skein to $2.25.

Now, let’s compare…

Although Ice Yarns sent me this yarn to review, and I did not purchase it myself, I’ve added these exact same yarns to the shopping cart to price what this order would have cost if I had ordered these items.

Here’s how the price broke down:

Favorite Worsted – 2 packs at $4.99 each, total cost is $9.98.

Camilla Cotton – 1 pack at $7.99.

Cotton Bamboo Light – 1 pack at $8.99.

This brings the total cost of all this yarn to $26.96…..

but this subtotal does not include shipping.  This yarn is shipping halfway across the world to get to the US, so the shipping costs are not as low as we would normally expect if ordering from a company based in the US.

Their estimated time it should take for the package to arrive once it has been shipped out is 2-6 working days.  You don’t have to wait several weeks to get your package, as one might expect when ordering from another country.  So getting a package shipped halfway across the world in just a few days is pretty good!

However, this means that the shipping costs from Ice Yarns are much higher than we would normally see if ordering from a US-based company.

So the shipping cost for this imaginary order is $23.95, bringing the final order total to $50.91. 

If you divide the shipping cost between the total number of skeins in the order (18 skeins), the cost of shipping per skein for this order is $1.33.  (The actual cost of shipping per skein will depend on your particular order, how many skeins you have, and how large they are.)

Now, before you say “Those shipping costs are crazy!  There’s no way that’s actually cheaper than buying yarn in the US,” let’s look at how much a very similar order would cost if we ordered comparable yarns from Lion Brand.

How much would yarn like this cost elsewhere?

I’ve also priced how much these types of yarn would cost if I ordered from Lion Brand.  Not many yarn companies offer a lot of cotton or bamboo yarns, so I chose to compare a Lion Brand order because they do have a few yarns that would be comparable to the Ice Yarns that I got.

Here’s a similar order price breakdown from Lion Brand:

– Lion Brand Basic Stitch Premium (A #4 Worsted Weight acrylic, comes in 100 gram skeins like Ice Yarns Favorite Worsted) – 8 skeins at $4.99 each, total cost is $39.92.

– Lion Brand 24/7 Cotton (This is my “comparable” yarn to Camilla Cotton, but it is Worsted Weight instead of Sport Weight and comes in larger skeins… this is the closest comparison I could find, as mercerized cotton yarns are hard to come by.  I have 6 x 50 gram skeins of Camilla Cotton, whereas 24/7 Cotton comes in 100 gram skeins, so it takes 3 skeins of 24/7 Cotton to equal the same amount of yarn by weight.) – 3 skeins at $4.99 each, total cost is $14.97.

– Lion Brand Coboo (This is a DK Weight cotton / bamboo blend, similar to Cotton Bamboo Light, both come in 100 gram skeins) – 4 skeins at $5.99 each, total cost is $23.96.

Lion Brand quoted me $9.20 for shipping, which brings our final order total to $88.05 before tax.

I realize that you could purchase from Lion Brand when some of the yarns are on sale, or go to a craft store in person and not have to pay for shipping.  Or, better yet, you could purchase at a craft store with coupons to bring the cost down further.

But even then, you still wouldn’t likely save as much on the overall cost as you would in this example by ordering from Ice Yarns.

(By the way, Ice Yarns has different deals and discounts on their yarns every day, so you could get some of their yarns at even lower prices than what I quoted in my example order.)

The Lion Brand order would cost $88.05, whereas the Ice Yarns order in our example would cost $50.91.  That’s a savings of $37.14!  

So the most important question is…

Would I purchase from Ice Yarns myself if I were yarn shopping online?

YES!!!  

I think Ice Yarns is a great place to get a variety of high-quality yarns at affordable, budget-friendly prices.  

They have so many different fibers and yarn types to choose from, and every one of their yarns that I have looked at is priced much lower than similar yarns available in the US.  And even with the higher shipping costs, you can still get a great deal on lots of beautiful yarns, especially if you shop what’s currently on sale.

So if you’re yarn shopping on a budget, and you don’t mind ordering yarn in packs of 4 or 6 instead of individual skeins, I would highly recommend giving Ice Yarns a try.  

Thanks so much to Ice Yarns for sending me these items to review!

Have you ever tried Ice Yarns?  What did you think?

Pin the image below to save this article for later!