The Hank and Skein Yarn Counts
Yarn fineness measured by how far a pound will stretch.
Origin
Developed through the English and Scottish textile trades and standardised industrially through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The catch
The scale is inverted and fibre-specific at once. A higher count means finer yarn, because more hanks are needed to weigh a pound. And the hank length differs by fibre, so a count of 40 means something different in cotton than in worsted.
| Fibre | Hank length | Count basis | A count of 40 means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cotton | 840 yards | Hanks per pound | 33,600 yards to the pound |
| Worsted wool | 560 yards | Hanks per pound | 22,400 yards to the pound |
| Linen (lea) | 300 yards | Leas per pound | 12,000 yards to the pound |
| Woollen (Yorkshire) | 256 yards | Skeins per pound | 10,240 yards to the pound |
| Silk (denier) | 9,000 metres | Grams per 9,000 m | A direct scale: higher is heavier |
Denier is the odd one out, and deliberately so: it is a direct scale where a higher number means a thicker filament, because silk was measured by weighing a fixed length rather than by measuring a fixed weight. That single reversal has confused textile students for well over a century, and it is why modern synthetic fibres, which followed silk’s convention, are quoted in denier and tex rather than in counts.