If you aren’t aware, Walmart now has their own brand of acrylic yarn: Mainstays 100% Acrylic Yarn. I watched a review of it on the Bag-O-Day Crochet YouTube channel. She really liked it so I thought I would give it a try.

I used it on the Tulip Afghan blanket that I finished a few months ago.

I think I bought this yarn in January and I enjoyed using it. It’s not my favorite acrylic yarn, but I would definitely purchase this before I bought the Red Heart Super Saver. I have become an acrylic yarn snob and I just don’t like the scratchy feel of Super Saver.

I happened to have a skein of Red Heart Super Saver in black, so let’s see them side-by-side.

Obviously my skein of Red Heart is a bit older. The label has the Coats & Clark info on it instead of their current Yarnspirations info. Okay, let’s get into the numbers (which is my favorite part!!)…

Red Heart Super Saver – 14 oz/396g  744 yds/681m

This gives us 53.14285 yds/oz or .0188172 oz/yd.

Per the Walmart website you can buy this for $6.44.

MainStays 100% Acrylic Yarn – 14 oz/396.9g  798 yds/730m

This gives us 57 yds/oz or .01754386 oz/yd.

Per the Walmart website you can buy this for $4.88, but it comes in limited colors and you have to go to the store to get it. You can’t have it delivered to your house.

Looking at those numbers the MainStays yarn is slightly thinner. Typically a fatter, plusher strand will feel better in your hands. When I crocheted with the Mainstays, though, it felt nicer than the Red Heart. It also didn’t split on me. I always seem to have trouble with Red Heart splitting no matter what color I’m using.

Let’s take a look at the strands. Mainstays is on the left and Red Heart is on the right:

In this picture you can actually see that the MainStays yarn is slightly thinner. That’s what our numbers told us and so you should believe them from now on. Numbers (usually) don’t lie.

Take a look at these strands, though. Do you notice anything? When I looked at these next to each other I thought that the Red Heart looked a lot bumpier as compared to the smoother strand of MainStays. I think this is the reason why Super Saver feels scratchier.

My Takeaway…

When I’m crocheting large projects and need a fairly common color like white, black, dark blue, red, green, etc I think that I will definitely buy the MainStays brand. Not only is it cheaper, but it feels a lot nicer than Red Heart Super Saver. I honestly try to avoid Super Saver if at all possible, so this will definitely help me with that goal.

For what it is, I give MainStays 100% Acrylic Yarn a 5 out of 5!