Hi Adele
Super explanation.
The specific gravity of the different fibres does have a small effect
on the size of finished thread, but cotton and linen are measured by
different sizes of hank.
With cotton: CC = Cotton Count, occasionally NeC = Number English Cotton
it's the number of 840 yard hanks which can be spun from 1 lb of fibre
With Linen: NeL = Number English Linen
it's the number of 300 yard hanks which can be spun from 1 lb of fibres
For any Fibre: Nm = Number Metric
it's the number of 1000 metre hanks that can be spun from 1 Kg of fibre.
These all give the size number of a single ply - usually the first
number.
These are indirect sizes, the bigger the number the finer the thread.
Silk is sometimes measured by cotton count, but most often it's
measured by denier which is the weight in grams of 9,000 metres of
thread. This is a direct measurement, the higher the number the
thicker the thread - think of tights/panty-hose and stockings. 10
denier is fine, 15 denier is every-day use and 30 denier is for winter.
Brenda
On 22 Jun 2008, at 18:22, Adele Shaak wrote:
I would have thought that the 80 would have been
thicker than the 100 but it wasn't, am I then right in thinking that
the /2 or
/3 makes a lot of difference and it is that that gives you the
thickness not
the first number.
Hi Wendy:
Both numbers combine to give you the thickness. Here's why:
I take a pound of whatever fibre I'm going to make thread from (let's
say cotton), and I spin it into a single ply of spun cotton. However
many hanks of thread I can spin out of that pound of thread is the
first number (the length of the hank is the same for every
manufacturer). Say I get 100 hanks out of a pound of that thread -
then the first number is 100.
But it is one single ply of spun cotton we're measuring here - I have
not yet plied the thread into the finished size. So I take two of
those plies and ply them together - that thread is marked 100/2. If I
take three of those plies and ply them together, I get a 100/3 thread.
Although the first number is the same, a given length of the 100/3
will weigh half again as much as the same length of the 100/2 thread.
So the 100/3 will be thicker than the 100/2. (although it will weigh
50% more per length the thread won't be 50% thicker though, because
the plies twine around one another to make a rounded thread.)
Now - here's another wrinkle. Different fibers have different specific
gravity, so that a pound of silk will not give you the same amount of
thread as a pound of cotton, even if you spin it to exactly the same
size of ply. I'm also not sure if the definition of how long a hank
is, is the same for silk as for cotton. So the fact that you got 100
hanks of thread from your pound of silk does *not* mean the single ply
of silk is the same size as a single ply of 100 cotton.
In case you were wondering - yes, linen also has a different specific
gravity from both cotton and silk.
Here's still another wrinkle: if you spin with a great many twists per
inch in your spun ply the thread will be harder, and contain more
fibre per inch, than if you spin with few twists per inch (it's called
the grist of the fibre). So different manufacturers will make a thread
that has the same size (say, 100/3) but is slightly different in how
big it is.
For these reasons none of our fibres (cotton, silk, linen) can be
compared for size to another thread based on the number on the label.
That is what makes Brenda's book such a help to us all - at last, a
way to compare!
Hope this helps.
Adele
North Vancouver, BC
(west coast of Canada)
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