Beginners Guide to yarn weight

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Ever watched a crochet tutorial and they describe yarn as category ?? yarn or worsted weight yarn or something that just did not make sense? Yeah, me too.

Well, i did some digging for you and brought everything together as much as i could so your life would be easier lol.

i will tell you about the yarn and what it is called in different countries. (i really wish we could all call our yarn the same names to eliminate all this cunfusion), and then i will give you a list of projects that work best with the mentioned yarn.

How is Yarn weight measured?

There are two main ways of measuring the ‘weight’ of yarn.

The one you will likely be most familiar with is the yarn weight categories, such as double knit or worsted, or a number, which you’ll see marked on most ball bands. But another, more traditional measurement is wraps per inch.

Whichever method you use, there is always going to be some variation within a class.

Yarn weights are on a spectrum, a continual scale of thin to thick. They don’t all sit neatly in the centre of an arbitrary category.

Measuring yarn in wraps per inch

The measurement given is just the number of times you can wrap your yarn around something (a knitting needle, pencil or aluminium crochet hook for example) over one inch. Hence the literal name wraps per inch.

If you keep scrolling to the chart below, You’ll see how the wraps per inch. measurement compares with the rest of the more familiar yarn weights.

There is so much science in yarn LOL

Lace Yarn

lace edited

In the US, this is a size 0 lace weight yarn, there are different kinds of yarn that would fall in this category and that is lace yarn as stated earlier, thread which is the most common, or cobweb yarn. All these would fall into the size zero lace weight yarn categoty in yhr US.

take the same yarn to the UK, this would be considered a one ply and in Australia, it would be considered two ply.

The lace yarn can be used to make doilies, baby dresses and the likes. But if you are looking for a list of cute projects to make with the lace yarn here are a few:

crochet amigurumi, crochet baby dresses, crochet shawl. this lace yarn is mainly common with knitters.

Superfine Number one

800g pc 100 Superfine Mercerized Merino Wool Yarn 17 5um For Knitting Crochet Yarn For Hand

This in the US falls in the fingering weight yarn, sock yarn, baby weight yarn.

in the uk, a fingering weight yarn would be a two ply yarn, and a sock weight yarn would be a three ply.

Take it to autralia, this would fal under 3 ply yarn.

You can use this yarn for anything you want, ranging from shawl, dresses, sweaters, cardigans. It just requires patience as the project would work up slowly.

Fine weight number 2

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The yarn that falls under this category would be sports weight yarn, baby weight yarn.

This yarn in the UK would be considered a 4ply, and if we take it to Australia, it is a 5 ply yarn.

You can make anything with this yarn that your heart desires again,,,if you have the patience nd time. However, the projects will come out gorgenous none the less.

Just be sure to not leave projects on the hook when working with such fine yarn as it can be very discouraging LOL, this is something every crocheter can relate to.

Lightweight 3 yarn

LoomSpindle ErikaKnight WoolLocal FairfaxEcru 2

In the US, this would include a lightweight worsted or a dk.

In the UK, this would be called a DK yarn which by the way stands for double knit

And, in Australia, this would be called a 8 ply. Again, you can make absolutey anything your heart desires. The higher we go with the yarns the thicker they get. meaning the less time you will be spending working with the yarn LOL.

Medium weight 4

This is the most common yarn that you will see in most of the crochet tutorials, well at least this speaks for me. the yarns that fall under this are the worsted weight yarn, aran yarn and afhan yarn.

In the UK, this is called an afgan yarn and in Australia, a 10 ply yarn.

This is very common in the US and very commonly used. It works very fast.

Bulky 5 weight yarn

the yarn that falls here are the chunky yarn, craft yarn, rug yarn.

In the UK this is called the chunky yarn, ad in Australia, 12 ply yarn.

Projects on these yarns work super super fast. so no need to worry about it staying on your hook for too long.

Super Bulky Yarn

This yarn in the US, is plain bulky, category number 6. In the UK, this i called the super bulky yarn. And in AUstralia, this is called the 14 ply yarn.

Blankets work at a good speed with this yarn and they can guarantee you all the warmth you seek.

The US has another bulky yarn which is a number 7 jumbo which is a very thick yarn that probably requires a 24mm hook if i am not wrong. Or, others usually use their hands to knit/ crochet with the yarn. incase you have ever come across hand knit blankets on YouTube, this was the yarn used.

And i know even ith all this information, (i hope it was a lot and you have learnt something), there will still be new information to gather out there,

that is the beauty of crochet, we are always learning.

For all the new information you have gathered today, from SitnCrochet, we say you are welcome,

incase we missed somethig out, please kindly let us know in the comment section below and we shall updare our information for future learning sake.

i had a great time doing my studying on the yarn and have laernt a thing or two, i hope you did too. Share this with sometone you know will find it very useful and educational.