A Handwoven Experience – Ep. 2 Yarn Sizes

In Episode 2, I thought it would be smart to piggyback off of Episode 1. Building on the theme of yarn (because who doesn’t love yarn?), I present a bit of an education on how to identify the various sizes. You’ll hear about our knitting/crocheting friends who do an excellent job of indicating the size of the yarn by a numbered scale, as well as using descriptive words – bulky, lace, etc.

Weavers? Well, because our system for identifying weaving yarn goes WAY back, it is a bit more convoluted. (For the history buffs, I chat about it at 2:16 – with some extra random trivia thrown in.) As a matter of fact, what’s little is big, and there are weird fractions that aren’t fractions… it’s all over the place!

But there is a method to the madness! And hopefully by the end of the video, you’ll learn why a 3/2 cotton is much bigger than a 20/2 cotton. Plus, you’ll have cool words like, “lea” and “hank” to add to your repertoire. Happy weaving! (Don’t forget to check out the show notes below!)

Here are a few show notes for you!

Sport weight – a #2 sized yarn for knitting/crocheting, fairly fine

Needles – 2 needles are used for knitting

Hook – 1 hook is used for crocheting

Hank – 840 yards of cotton yarn

Lea – 300 yards of linen yarn

Worsted – 560 yards of wool yarn

Ply – one strand of yarn (usually yarn has 2 or more)

Sett – how closely yarns are spaced together in a project