US yarn in the UK
Bernat Pop! in the UK: closest UK yarns
Bernat Pop! looks to have been discontinued: on 6 October 2026 Yarnspirations listed it only as clearance and discontinued shades, none of them in stock, and LoveCrafts UK had none of its 26 shades in stock. The closest UK swap in the yarns we track is Paintbox Simply Aran: 100% acrylic, 184m per 100g against 182.9m, and 18 knitted stitches to 10cm on its ball band against 16 on the maker’s.
Bernat Pop! is a self-striping cake with long colour changes and Paintbox Simply Aran is a plain colour, so this swap gets the size right but not the stripes: change colours yourself every few rows, or look for a yarn cake of the same weight.
Best UK swap: Paintbox Simply Aran · 53 shades in stock · from £1.69 a ball
See Paintbox Simply Aran shades at LoveCrafts ↗More choice: search Amazon UK for aran yarn cake ↗
Ad · paid links. Price and stock at LoveCrafts checked 6 October 2026.
How many balls to buy
Buy by length, not by ball: a ball of Bernat Pop! holds 256m and a ball of Paintbox Simply Aran holds 184m.
- 1 ball of Bernat Pop! (256m) → 2 of Paintbox Simply Aran
- 3 balls of Bernat Pop! (768m) → 5 of Paintbox Simply Aran
- 5 balls of Bernat Pop! (1280m) → 7 of Paintbox Simply Aran
- 10 balls of Bernat Pop! (2560m) → 14 of Paintbox Simply Aran
For any pattern, our yarn substitution calculator does the sum, and the pattern reader pulls the yarn list out of a pasted pattern.
UK yarns compared
| UK yarn | UK weight | Fibre | Metres per 100g | Knit tension (10cm) | UK balls per Bernat Pop! ball | Shades in stock |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paintbox Simply Aran best match | Aran | 100% acrylic | 184m (+1%) | 18 sts (+13%) | 1.39 | 53 of 65, from £1.69 |
| Paintbox Wool Mix Aran | Aran | 50% wool, 50% acrylic | 180m (-2%) | 18 sts (+13%) | 1.42 | 37 of 60, from £4.55 |
| Stylecraft Special Aran | Aran | 100% acrylic | 196m (+7%) | 18 sts (+13%) | 1.31 | 3 of 50, from £2.35 |
Bernat Pop!: the maker’s specs
| Weight | #4 Worsted (Medium) |
|---|---|
| Fibre | 100% acrylic |
| Ball | 140g (5 oz), 256m (280 yd) |
| Metres per 100g | 182.9m |
| Hook | 5 mm (US H/8) |
| Needles | 5 mm (US 8) |
| Tension | Crochet: 12 sc x 13 r = 4" (10 cm) on 5 mm (US H/8); Knit: 16 sts x 20 r = 4" (10 cm) on 5 mm (US 8) |
Before you swap
US “worsted” (weight 4) sits between UK DK and aran; most worsted patterns work in a UK aran, but a lighter worsted can be closer to a heavy DK. Make a 10cm swatch in your swap yarn with the pattern’s hook or needles and compare it with the tension above. If your square is bigger, go down a size; if it’s smaller, go up. Swapping fibre changes the feel and the wash: acrylic for acrylic, cotton for cotton keeps a pattern behaving as written.
Sources: Bernat product page, Paintbox Simply Aran. How we rank swaps: one combined score for closeness in metres per 100g, knitted tension on the ball band and fibre, with a small penalty for yarns with fewer than 10 shades in stock and for a chunky standing in for a worsted. See also UK yarn weights explained.