Buying yarn online is mostly an act of faith. You cannot squeeze a skein through a screen, so this Hobby Shopy review looks at the thing you can actually judge from a listing: whether the shop tells you enough to buy with confidence, and whether the brands it carries are the ones experienced makers reach for.
Hobby Shopy is a hand knitting yarn and accessories store, and it describes itself as a go-to online shop for cheap yarns including Alize, Nako, YarnArt and Gazzal, alongside needles, Tulip hooks, crochet accessories and chunky yarns. Here is what that looks like in practice.
What Hobby Shopy stocks
The catalogue splits cleanly into three parts, which makes it easier to navigate than most yarn shops.
Yarn is the core, and it spans the full weight range rather than clustering around one fashionable thickness. At the fine end there is Etrofil Organic Cotton and Etrofil Fluffy; in the middle, Etrofil Superstar, Popstar, Baby Joy and Bambino Lux Wool; at the heavy end, Etrofil Megastar, Etrofil Step, Himalaya Dolphin Big and Alize Puffy Furlove.
Tools are the second pillar, and this is where the shop signals who it is for. It carries Tulip, including the ETIMO Murasaki crochet hooks and the TEM-001 set, which is not a beginner-price brand.
Accessories and threads round it out, with Anchor Mouliné embroidery floss, Happyarn macrame cords, and the Selfiko amigurumi crochet kit for people starting from zero. You can browse the full range at Hobby Shopy.
The listings tell you what you need
This is the part that matters most for an online yarn purchase, and it is where the shop is strongest. Product pages are structured rather than vague, and they consistently give brand, fibre content, weight, yardage, recommended crochet hook, recommended needle size and yarn weight category.
Take Etrofil Superstar: 75% acrylic and 25% organic wool, 100 g (3.53 oz), 170 m (185 yds), recommended hook 4 to 5 mm, recommended needles 5 to 6 mm, worsted. Or Etrofil Organic Cotton: 100% organic cotton with GOTS and OEKO-TEX certification, 50 g (1.76 oz), 165 m (180 yds), 2.0 mm hook, 3.0 mm needles, light worsted or DK.
That is enough to substitute a yarn into a pattern without guessing, which is the single most useful thing a yarn shop can do for a remote customer. It also means you can compare two skeins on metres per gram rather than on photographs, which is how you spot value.
The shop is also honest about the limits of online colour. Several listings carry a plain note that the colour on screen may differ from the actual yarn tone, and that out-of-stock shades can be requested by message rather than simply vanishing.
The brands worth knowing
A yarn shop is only as good as its buying, so here is what the shelf actually looks like.
Etrofil dominates, and it covers the widest ground. The acrylic and organic wool trio of Megastar, Superstar and Popstar shares a 75/25 blend across three thicknesses, which is genuinely useful when you want the same hand feel in a different gauge. Bambino Lux Wool moves upmarket at 60% merino wool and 40% acrylic. Baby Joy and Fluffy go the anti-pilling acrylic route for easy care.
Anchor covers embroidery. Anchor Mouliné is a six-strand floss in 100% extra-long staple cotton, double mercerized for a smooth texture and a light-reflecting sheen, sold in 8 m (8.7 yd) skeins that separate into six individual strands so you can dial the thickness up or down.
Tulip covers hooks, and the ETIMO Murasaki line is the flagship. The hooks are pale purple with graduated cushion grips, and the sizing runs from 1/0 (1.80 mm) up through 10/0 (6.00 mm), so a single family covers thread crochet through to chunky work.
Happyarn handles macrame, and it is more specialised than most shops bother with. The 2.5 mm Lurex cord is 100% polypropylene at 100 g and 75 m (82 yds), while the cotton macrame is a super bulky 60% cotton with 40% viscose and polyester at 250 g and 85 m (92 yds).
Where it fits, and where it does not
The strongest case for this shop is breadth in one basket. If a project needs DK merino for the body, a chenille yarn for the trim and a 3 mm Tulip hook, you are not placing three orders.
The second case is the tools. Carrying the ETIMO Murasaki set, which ships with eight hooks from 2.00 to 6.00 mm, two tapestry needles, three pin stitch markers and a clasp case at a package size of 188 by 153 by 21 mm and a net weight of 224 g, says the shop expects customers who intend to keep crocheting.
The weaker point is the one every online yarn seller shares: you are trusting photographs for colour, and dye lots matter on a big project. Buy enough for the whole piece in one go, and treat the on-screen shade as an approximation.
Beginners should also note that the range assumes you know what you want. If you do not yet, our look at finished crochet bouquets is a good way to see where these fibres end up.
Who Hobby Shopy is for
It suits the maker who already knows their gauge and wants a wide, well-specified shelf to shop from. It suits macrame and home decor makers unusually well, because the Happyarn cords are a niche most general yarn shops skip.
It also suits absolute beginners better than you might expect, thanks to the Selfiko amigurumi crochet kit. That is an all-in-one learning set with everything needed to start, prepared with clear, easy-to-follow English instructions and pitched at international customers and gift buyers, which removes the hardest part of starting: not knowing what to buy.
It is less obviously for the maker who needs to feel a yarn before committing, or who wants a curated shortlist rather than a catalogue.
One group it serves better than most shops is gift buyers. A crochet kit, a set of hooks and a few skeins is a complete present rather than a component of one, and the amigurumi kit in particular is framed as a gift option and a relaxing DIY activity as much as a learning tool. If you are shopping in that direction, our crochet bouquet gift guide by occasion shows what the finished results look like.
The other quietly useful group is people who already crochet and are tired of ordering hooks from one place, yarn from another and tapestry needles from a third. Having Tulip, Etrofil, Anchor and Happyarn on a single shelf removes a real friction that most shoppers only notice at the checkout stage.
Hobby Shopy review: the verdict
This is a well-specified, broad hand knitting yarn shop with better tool coverage than its price positioning suggests. The Etrofil range gives you one fibre philosophy across many weights, Tulip gives you hooks worth keeping, and Anchor and Happyarn extend the shop into embroidery and macrame without feeling like an afterthought.
Read the fibre content and yardage on every listing, buy your full quantity in one order, and it is an easy shop to work with. Start browsing yarn, hooks and accessories at Hobby Shopy.
Frequently asked questions
Which yarn brands does the shop carry?
Its own description names Alize, Nako, YarnArt and Gazzal among others, and the range on the shelf also includes Etrofil, Himalaya, Anchor threads and Happyarn macrame cords, plus Tulip hooks.
Do the listings give enough detail to substitute yarn in a pattern?
Generally yes. Listings state fibre content, skein weight, length in metres and yards, recommended hook size, recommended needle size and yarn weight category, which is what a substitution calculation needs.
Is there anything for complete beginners?
Yes. The Selfiko amigurumi crochet kit is an all-in-one set designed for beginners and hobby learners, with step-by-step English instructions, and it doubles as a gift.