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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