US yarn in the UK
Red Heart With Love in the UK: closest UK yarns
The maker’s online shop, Yarnspirations, sells it to the US and Canada, and LoveCrafts UK lists it but had none of its 31 shades in stock on 4 October 2026. The closest UK swap in the yarns we track is Paintbox Simply Aran: 100% acrylic, 184m per 100g against 170.7m, and 18 knitted stitches to 10cm on its ball band against 16 on the maker’s.
Best UK swap: Paintbox Simply Aran · 56 shades in stock · from £2.60 a ball
See Paintbox Simply Aran shades at LoveCrafts ↗Ad · paid link. Price and stock at LoveCrafts checked 4 October 2026.
How many balls to buy
Buy by length, not by ball: a ball of Red Heart With Love in a solid shade holds 338m (print and multi shades often come in smaller balls; check the label) and a ball of Paintbox Simply Aran holds 184m.
- 1 ball of Red Heart With Love (338m) → 2 of Paintbox Simply Aran
- 3 balls of Red Heart With Love (1014m) → 6 of Paintbox Simply Aran
- 5 balls of Red Heart With Love (1690m) → 10 of Paintbox Simply Aran
- 10 balls of Red Heart With Love (3380m) → 19 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 Red Heart With Love ball | Shades in stock |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paintbox Simply Aran best match | Aran | 100% acrylic | 184m (+8%) | 18 sts (+13%) | 1.84 | 56 of 65, from £2.60 |
| Stylecraft Special Aran | Aran | 100% acrylic | 196m (+15%) | 18 sts (+13%) | 1.72 | 6 of 50, from £1.88 |
| Stylecraft Special Chunky | Chunky | 100% acrylic | 144m (-16%) | 14 sts (-12%) | 2.35 | 10 of 50, from £2.00 |
Red Heart With Love: the maker’s specs
| Weight | #4 Worsted (Medium) |
|---|---|
| Fibre | 100% acrylic |
| Ball (solid shades) | 198g (7 oz), 338m (370 yd) |
| Metres per 100g | 170.7m |
| Hook | 6.5 mm (US K/10 1/2) |
| Needles | 5.5 mm (US 9) |
| Tension | Crochet: 14 sc x 14 r = 4" (10 cm) on 6.5 mm (US K/10 1/2); Knit: 16 sts x 22 r = 4" (10 cm) on 5.5 mm (US 9) |
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: Red Heart 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.