Written by Sally Barret of Knit Sally Knit

FEATURED SUPPLIER! – Abstract Cat Crafts

As well as being a fabulous emporium of handmade crafts, Folksy is a great place to find materials for your crafts and hobbies such as knitting and crochet with a great array of suppliers to choose from. One such supplier is Abstract Cat Crafts Abstract Cat Crafts is run by Laura. Despite being a graduate several times over, Laura decided to pursue her love of crafts and bright, variegated sock and laceweight yarns and now supplies her own hand-dyed and hand-painted versions. She says: “I have been a crafter for as long as I can remember and have dabbled in many crafts over the years, some more successfully than others! I love blues, teals and purple, and these come through in my work. I aim to add new items at least once a week, so please check back to see what’s new.” I just love the deep shades of forest green, teal and cerulean blue that are in the ‘Azure Seas’ beautiful lace weight yarn and the gorgeous rainbow colours in ‘Hippy Chick’ sock yarn, the colour combinations are just incredible and make you want to pick up your needles and start knitting!

FOLKSY FINDS! Small project patterns for knitting & crochet

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Knitting and Crochet Tips – Yarn sizing and needle gauge

I have a huge stash of yarn, in 6 large containers on top of my wardrobe, filled with all sorts of yarn that I have collected over the years, many of which have no product label so I don’t have a clue whether they are 4 ply, double knit or aran etc. or what needles to knit them on.

If you are like me and have unidentified yarn, don’t panic! There is a solution, all you need is a measuring rule with inches marked on it, or failing that a tape measure and a pencil will do the job. This is how you do it:

1. Take your unidentified ball of yarn and if possible select the end of the yarn that is in the middle section of the ball, as this will be undisturbed and a more consistent shape for our purposes.
2. Now starting at the beginning of an inch, wrap your yarn around the ruler (or pencil) and keep doing this until you reach the beginning of the next inch. (If you are using a pencil, measure an inch with your tape measure).
3. It is important to keep an even tension whilst ‘wrapping’ you don’t want to be too tight or too loose and do not overlap your ‘wraps’.
4. Once you have done this count the ‘wraps per inch’ WPI, (count how many times the wraps around the rule or pencil) and refer to the chart below to determine the ply of your yarn.

Yarn Type	UK Ply	Wraps per inch (WPI)
Thread, Cobweb and Lace	1 – 3 ply	18+ wpi
Fingering	4 ply	14 wpi
Sport	5 ply	12 wpi
DK	8 ply	11 wpi
Worsted	10 ply	9 wpi
Aran	10 ply	8 wpi
Bulky	12 ply	7 wpi
Super Bulky		5-6 wpi

Once you have determined the ply of your yarn it would be helpful to know what size needles to use for your knitting, if you had the ball band, it would tell you a suggested needle size but if you don’t have the ball band use the guide below.

USA	UK	Suggested needle (mm)
Laceweight	2ply Laceweight	1.5–2.25 mm
Light Fingering	3ply	2.25– 3 mm
Fingering	Sock or 4ply	2.25— 3.25 mm
Sport	Light DK	3.25— 3.75 mm
DK/Light Worsted	DK	3.75— 4.5 mm
Worsted	No equivalent, possibly Aran	4.5— 5.5 mm
Aran	Aran	4.5— 5.5 mm
Bulky	Chunky	5.5– 8 mm
Super Bulky	Super Chunky	8 mm and up

Happy Crafting :-)

This article was kindly written for the Folksy blog by Sally Barret of Knit Sally Knit