Crochet hook review 3 – FURLS Odyssey and Candy shop – JIMBO’s front porch hook

Filed under: Crochet — June 8, 2016 @ 12:26 pm

Are your wrists sometimes sore from crocheting ?
You inherited a collection of old plain hooks  and now you’re dreaming of enhancing your stash with pretty colorful hooks ?
Or maybe the yarn sometimes snag into the head of the hook, and you wonder whether you could find more efficient/precise hooks ?

Last weeks we started to review 5 different brands and types of crochet hooks and ergonomic hooks: ADDI swing and colors, CLOVER soft-touch and amour, KNITPRO waves, and I shared the results of my tests along with 2 fellow crocheters to make the review more objective and thorough.

Then we tested more hooks, with the PRYM soft and ergonomics, TULIP ETIMO rose, SUSAN BATES silvalume .

Deepest thanks to all the brands who generously sent hooks for us to test (with no influence on our results): ADDI crochet hooks- PRYM crochet hooks – CLOVER crochet hooks – JIMBO’s front porch  crochet hooks – TULIP ETIMO crochet hooks

First, here’s a reminder of the specifis of all 3 crocheters who shared their opinions in this test, along with some info on each of us:

 
1/ ConfitureAlaMure, crochet designer and crochet teacher: ” I suffer from rheumatoid arthritis. Crocheting helps me start moving around in the morning.
I’m a thwarted left-hander.  I learned to crochet with my right hand, but it’s my left hand with bring the yarn and stitches under the hook. My right hand hardly moves in the end.
The comfort of the handle is my own most important criteria in choosing a hook. I will always prefer a comfortable grip of the handle over a super precise head. I don’t really mind unraveling a stitch that wasn’t caught right, but I need to have a good hold of my hook. And if it’s pretty, that’s even better.
However, I always pay attention to adapting the right hook to the fiber I’m using. I will only use bamboo hooks for mohair or lace, nver for cotton or wool. To crochet with cotton yarns, you definitively need a hook with a steel shaft, or it’s just impossible. Cotton needs to glide over the hook, when mohair needs to be held back “
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2/ Lu. – “Left-hander, suffering from osteoarthristis and issues with her thumbs and wrists, she started to crochet 2 years ago (..) and favors especially bamboo, wood and ergonomic handles. “
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3/ And me… Sylvie Damey. – “Left-hander, holding my hook with a knife grip. No real joint issues, yet sometimes my wrists feel a bit rusty. In those cases, I’ll try to alternate the “working hand” even though my hook always remain in the right hand.
I crochet mostly sweaters, and as such, I’m always looking for speed and efficiency. If the yarn tends to snag or if I have to pull each loop through one-by-one, I just loose patience instantly !
My most important criteria on a hook is thus the precision and efficiency of the head of the hook. All the rest comes after.

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And now, here’s what we felt while trying each of those hooks… This time, we’re reviewing JIMBO’s front porch hooks + the FURLS odyssey & candy shop +
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Jimbo1 Jimbo2

Crochet hook JIMBO’s front porch hook

TECH: Each hook made by Jimbo is made of wood and ENTIRELY sculpted by hand. He usually picks pieces of wood on his property and hand carves a hook out of it. I highly encourage you to read about his process and all the work involved on his blog.

Weight of a 5 mm hook: 25.6 grams

Length: 18.4 cm

Average price: between $30 and $60, as they are auctionned on Jimbo’s blog


Pros:

1/ Beautiful hook and an impressive head ! So happy I discoved this hook

2/ Most excellent. Amazing lightness and grip in the hand, perfect hold of the yarn. I was expecting it to be heavy but the handle is very light, and thick. This is surprisingly super confortable especially for somebody who has arthritis. I love this hook which would definitively by my everyday crochet hook wasn’t it for the high price !

3/ An incredibly precise and efficient head. The handle is perfect with the ultimate thumb-rest. This hook is even more amazing when you know it was made all by hand…

Cons:
1/ The handle is too big and the hook stand at its end unbalances slightly the hand. It’s really too bad because otherwise it’s really great to hold in your hand. The effort towards perfect esthetics took away some of the comfort…

2/ The price takes away all my desires to buy one..

3/ The stand at the end of the handle is a bit heavy and feels like it unbalances th ehook. It’s a shame because it would be just perfect otherwise. (but Jimbo is so nice he was very keen to hear what we thought, and might change that on future hooks..)

In ONE word this hook is:
A very beautiful object – A must – Amazing

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 FurlsOdyssey1 FurlsOdyssey2

Crochet hook FURLS odyssey

TECH: head and shank in metal. Handle is in slick resin, looking like piano keys, very elegant.

Weight of a 5 mm hook: 36.7 grams

Length: 17 cm

Price: 30 $ + shipping from the US

Pros:
1/ Hem… it’s pretty ^^ Metal glides well.
2/ Decent grip of the yarn
3/ It’s a beautiful object and crochets nearly without any glitch (and I’m picky!). Crocheting with this hook is for me like a moment of pure bliss, appreciating each and every stitch I make with it.

Cons:

1/ I don’t like the fact that the groove is very shallow, with hardly any lip to hold the yarn. The shank gets wider as it meets the handle. It’s pretty but doesn’t help keeping even stitches. The weight of this hook is unbelievable (so heavy!). So dissapointing, I would have loved to love it…
2/ The looks, the price and the heavy weight of its handle.
3/ It’s a bit heavy. I made a sunhat with it, but I’m not too sure I could crochet a full sweater because of how heavy it is. Also, it’s expensive, esp. with shipping from the US when you live in Europe.  AND my gauge is looser when I crochet with it. When I measure the shank with my hook-gauge, both my Odyssey hooks seem about 5 mm above their stated size. I read somewhere a lady had the same issue. Is is because of the design of those hooks, or a problem with their sizing ?
In ONE word this hook is:
Both pretty and dumb ! – Dissapointing – Beautiful

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Finally, I was the lucky winner of a hook on Moogly’s blog a few weeks ago. It was too late to include it with the other hooks for my fellow testers, but here’s already my own thoughts on it:

FurlsCandyShop1FurlsCandyShop2

 

Crochet hook FURLS candy shop

TECH: This hook is made of resin, with several coats of glitter paint on top. Each size of hook is a slightly different design and a different color.

Weight of a 6 mm hook: 19.2 grams

Length: 14 cm

Average price: $50 + shipping from the US


Pros:

Despite its flat head which looked scary at first (I feared it would not poke through stitches properly), it crochets rather smoothly. The handle is short, with a large “tummy” which rests nicely inside my palm as I hold it as a knife.

Cons:
The price !! 50$ for a hook made out of resin sounds out of proportions to me. And the tiny flimsy box it was sent into looked a bit cheap, would certainly would be dissapointed if I had bought it at this price.

In ONE word this hook is:
Cute but outrageously expensive!

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+ read also: 

Test of the  PRYM Soft & Ergonomics, TULIP ETIMO Rose, SUSAN BATES Silvalume crochet hooks

Test of the high-end FURLS Odyssey, Candy shop crochet hooks, JIMBO’s front porch hooks

+ Coming soon:

Anatomy of a crochet hook, and criteria to take into account when choosing the right hook for YOU

Yes, I’d love to hear about Sylvie Damey’s next articles & patterns !



3 Comments »

  1. Regina S:

    Totally agree on the furls hooks, like the feel of the Odessa but very heavy. The candy shop hooks are expensive but furls has the Best customer service I have ever had the pleasure to deal with. They have replaced two of my candy shop hooks, one because finish started to come off and one that my grandson broke. My issue is nowhere on the hook does it tell you what size the hook is . Always have to look it up, will eventually have to put it on them with magic marker.

  2. Lori:

    I have several Odyssey hooks and I love them! It does take some getting used to the weight of the hook, but it is very well balanced and the pewter makes the yarn glide smoothly on the shaft. In turn, this helps your tension stay even and you are able to crochet faster. I have carpal tunnel and after doing my hand exercises(you’ll find on their website-courtesy of Mr. Richards!) I am able to crochet quite a while without pain.Their customer service is wonderful-I was given 2 Candy hooks as a gift, but found them to be to light weight and the design on the handle hurt my hand. They exchanged them with no problems and I was able to purchase one of their beautiful necklaces as a result of the exchange.

  3. Catherine McClarey:

    I got that same 6mm Furls Candy Shop hook as a Mother’s Day present a couple of years ago. It’s very pretty, but I probably don’t use it as much as some of my other hooks in that size, mainly because at that $50 price point, I don’t feel comfortable taking it along on road trips or to “knit night” meetings. The Candy Shop range is color-coded, though, so if one remembers the color-coding, one doesn’t absolutely need the hook sizes written/engraved on them.
    Furls has recently introduced a new Streamline range of hooks (all-wood, sizes clearly marked on each hook, and less expensive), and with the coupon codes they had for these on and shortly after Black Friday, I ended up ordering/pre-ordering 1 of each size as Christmas presents for myself. They’re supposed to be far lighter than the Odyssey hooks, too.
    Now I’m dithering about today’s Furls flash sale: buy one of their hook clutches (US$60), get an Odyssey hook free. The hook clutches look very nice (especially if one can stack the ongoing 15% off storewide coupon code with the flash sale), but they’re still pricey — and do I really want an Odyssey hook, especially after ordering all of those Streamline hooks? I make a lot of charity-crochet afghans, so hand fatigue during large projects is a concern for me, and after hearing how heavy the Odyssey hooks are, I’m hesitant to order one, even during a special sale.

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