One of the major sticking points, for a lot of beginners, is the way yarn size is reported. The numbers have a meaning, but, more importantly, "how thick is a particular yarn?" because the thickness and its strength are what I need to know right off the bat. There is no point in learning more about a particular yarn if it will not work for my projects.
I am a visual learner. I read text and then I need to see pictures or video. So, I will explain the numbering system and then show you a picture that I think will really help seal this.
The nomenclature that is most often used will give you either a number followed by "Nm" or two numbers that look like a fraction (a top number and a bottom number). The single number followed by "Nm" is really that number over 1 which is confusing so it's replaced with "Nm" instead. Ok, so what do all of these numbers mean?
First number or the number before the "Nm", example is "10 Nm" or "20 Nm", which are really "10/1" and "20/1". "10 Nm" means that for every kilogram of this yarn, you will get 10,000 meters. Remember that "10 Nm" really means "10/1". So what's does the "1" mean? It means that this is single ply yarn. See how easy that was? Again, 10/1 yarn (which is the same thing as 10 Nm yarn) means that for every kilogram of this yarn, you get 10,000 meters of single ply yarn. Therefore, for 20 Nm or 20/1 yarn, you get 20,000 meters of single ply yarn for each kilogram. Then 20/2 must mean that you have 2 strands of 20 Nm yarn plied together :) Yay! It's making some sense now. But wait! What happens to the meterage of yarn? Good question. You have 2 strands of yarn that gives you 20,000 meters for 1 kilogram of yarn each. You need half a kilogram from one yarn (10,000 meters) and half a kilogram from the other yarn (10,000 meters) to make 1 kilogram of 2 plied yarn (so you twist the two 10,000 meter lengths together and your total length remains 10,000 meters). Another way of doing this is divide the top number by the bottom number :) Great, now we all know what the numbers mean but I still don't understand what a strand of mulberry silk that is 10/2 looks like and how do I use it in my weaving. So now we get to the picture.....I think this will help. I am using cotton 8/2 and cotton 10/2 as references only so you have something you recognize to compare the strands of yarn to. This is also only for Mulberry Silk.
