How can you tell the difference between worsted weight and sport weight yarn?

Someone gave me a bunch of leftover skeins of yarn, some of which have no labels. I’m not very experienced with knitting or crocheting, so I’d like to know how to tell the difference between worsted weight and sport weight yarn.

2 Comments

Shelfie58 December 29th, 2009 at 11:23 am

It depends on how old the yarn is. I would do the swatch test where you knit a 4 inch by 4 inch square of each yarn. Note how many stitches per inch and how many rows per inch you get on a piece of stockinette stitch, not stretched, and what needle size you used. That will be your best way to tell if the yarn is suited for what you want to make. Tedious, yes but it is the best way to get something to come out the right size. Everybody knits at a different tension.

EL DIABLO December 29th, 2009 at 12:19 pm

A very quick, very old standby to size any yarn is to wrap it around a knitting needle and then count the wraps per inch. Wrap a yarn that you know the size of as well so that you have a comparison. I have some very old European patterns that call for yarn by the wraps per inch instead of the weight.

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