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This Red Heart Granny Square yarn review takes a look at the special Red Heart yarns that they say make it easier to make standard or flower granny squares without having to change colors.
What is Granny Square Yarn?
Red Heart first released their All in One Granny Square yarn in 2024. It’s a multicolored yarn that is designed so that you can make a granny square with rounds of different colors without having to actually change colors.
This way, each square only has two ends to weave in. If you used five colors as these blocks do, you’d have 67 percent more ends to weave in, according to Red Heart.
A single ball makes up to 14 squares, and there are 33 different color options.
They have since released All in One Flower Power yarn, which has 22 shades and allows you to make a floral granny square in three colors without cutting or changing yarn.
The idea is that this makes granny square crochet that much faster, easier and more convenient to do on the go, but is it really? Check out the details in my granny square yarn review below.
How Does Granny Square Yarn Work?
These granny square yarns are based on the same idea as other self striping and self patterning yarns, in that the color runs are measured out so that a person getting the specified gauge should be able to make the expected pattern, whether that’s solid stripes or, in this case, a granny square.
Of course that “person getting the specified gauge” part is the key, and that’s what makes these granny square yarns tricky to use. If you happen to be able to get the right gauge right off the bat, they’re a great innovation, but if your gauge is different they can be frustrating.
Just to show you the lengths of the different colors in action, I knit a swatch in stockinette stitch and crocheted one in single crochet so you can see how much of each color there is. These are each 24 stitches wide.
Granny Square Yarn Review
In order to give an honest Red Heart granny square yarn review, I picked up the yarn and the suggested hook and followed the instructions (which are inside the label but there’s also video instructions on the Yarnspirations website).
Five attempts and two smaller hooks later (the pattern calls for an I/5.5 mm and I ended up using a G/6/4.25mm), I was finally able to get the center color to come out properly.
The second round took me two tries and was almost perfect (I didn’t have yarn for the join at the end of the round but I let that be OK).
The third round came out perfect on the first try.
The fourth was one stitch short, but ripping out one side and stitching it a little tighter made it perfect. The advice is to work a little looser or tighter as needed if you’re not hitting your color changes in the right place.
On the last round I was one stitch short again, and with adjustments I made it perfect but there was no tail. Eventually I was able to eke out a little tail to finish it off.
I tried a second square and it was actually a little more fussy.
I’m not sure there is any time savings in using this yarn compared to making granny squares with different colors, but it is kind of fun to see the colors appear and super satisfying when it works. I will try to make the rest of the squares and make a project out of them in the future.
Red Heart All in One Granny Square yarn is available from Yarnspirations, Amazon and Mary Maxim, among other retailers. The color I used is called Black Carnation Code.
Flower Power Yarn Review
For the Flower Power granny square yarn review, I started with the same hook size that worked for the regular granny square yarn. It still took a bit of finessing to get the center part correct.
With this one there are only three colors and there is meant to be a long tail at the end for ease in sewing the blocks together, so it’s harder to judge your progress until you get to the end of a section. (Though it does give you more wiggle room at the end, which is nice.)
I had a hard time getting the second color change to happen in the right place (at times I had as much as a foot of yarn left over) so I ended up switching to a bigger hook for this one.
That helped but I clearly did something wrong making it into a square because it is not. But by this time I’d spent more than an hour on a single square so I gave up. The flower is cute, though!
I don’t know if I will keep trying (and in the yarn’s defense I’ve actually never made a flower granny square before so I’m positive it was user error) but this yarn is pretty and since the color runs are longer I think it would work better for projects that aren’t granny squares. You could maybe even just use it for a granny stitch project. The yarn is meant to make about 12 squares per skein.
If you want to try it you can find it at Yarnspirations, Amazon and Mary Maxim, among others. The colorway shown here is wisteria.
Have you tried either of these yarns? I’d love to hear your granny square yarn review!
