Welcome back! This week we’re looking at the qualities of Major, a soft, bulky Yarn by Universal Yarn and its strongest attributes. These should make any knitter excited about casting on with it.

Major is a bulky weight yarn that knits up at around 15 stitches to 4″ [10cm]. The recommended needle size is a US 10 [6mm] but you could use a size or 2 smaller or larger depending on the drape you want to achieve. This substantial 7oz [200g] ball comes in 30 different colorways, which guarantees that every knitter or knitwear recipient will find a color for them from this palette.

The yarn is 100% acrylic, so it’s great for those who are allergic to animal dander and lanolin, and those who just don’t want to invest a lot of time in hand-washing their sweaters or scarves or hats, or whatever lovely items they make out of Major.

The structure of Major consists of 2 individual plies of spun fiber that is space-dyed with a series of colors that gradually transition from one to the other and cycle through a 3- or 4-color sequence. In the skein that I received to review, the one ply consisted of a terracotta red, a mocha brown, and a camel beige. The other ply was mostly cream.

At first I thought it was only cream, but as I knit with it, I discovered that at times it transitioned to a lighter version of the camel beige and even had some segments of the terracotta in it. The marled plies (or barber pole, as I like to call it) allow for gradual striping and a built-in tweedy look.

I found that this variety of acrylic isn’t squeaky while knitting, and has a very soft hand to it. The twist isn’t too tight, so there’s a lot of loft in the yarn itself, and also in the fabric when I knit it to the recommended gauge. Over the next few days, I’ll share my experience swatching and designing with Major.