How to Read a Ball Band

Hi, I'm Mary Beth Temple. And whether you knit or whether you crochet when you go shopping for yarn, there's a lot of information on the ball band that can help you select the right yarn for your project. So I just briefly wanna go over some of the things you might wanna pay attention to. Now, the first thing it's going to tell you is the weight and if you are like me and have been knitting and crocheting for a really long time, older patterns will say buy four ounces of yarn, five ounces of yarn, 12 ounces of yarn. We don't really do that anymore because there's so many choices at the yarn store that the yardage may be different from here to there.

And we mostly want to depend on yardage to make sure that we have enough yarn for our project. But it is going to tell you the ounces and often the grams. Now, we have the yardage right here. Now, this particular skein, it says 100 and 85 yards or 100 and 70 m. Most patterns today will tell you how many yards of yarn you need rather than how many ounces.

So knowing the yardage is going to help you immensely. Now, here it says machine washable and dry. You can Google these care icons. They're the same ones that the dry cleaner might read because they're inside of your work suit. They're the same icons for yarn as they are for clothes that you might get in the shop.

But it's telling you you can wash this up to about 100 and five °F. You probably don't wanna go over that. It's telling you not to iron again, you can Google all of these and get an idea of what each and every one of them means, but it will help you care for your finished item. Now, we're going to have our fiber content. Now, this one is 100% acrylic.

It might say 100% wool, it might say 70% Merino, 20% nylon, 10% cashmere, all of the fibers that are included in the yarn must be listed here and that's to prevent people from getting stuff they're allergic to. And it also helps you figure out how to care for your finished item. Now, I wanna talk about these guys right here. Now that says medium four, the yarn weight system in the United States is monitored by the Kraft Yarn Council of America. And the numbers range from one and I believe we're all the way up to seven.

Although the thicker the yarn gets in the store the more numbers they have to end at, at the higher end. So telling you that this is a craft yarn Council of America four tells you it's a worsted weight give or take. Now is every single worsted weight yarn in the world going to be the exact same thickness and have the exact same yardage. No, it's not. It's a range.

So telling you it's a four tells you it's worsted weight, not necessarily specifically what that worsted weight means. So if you're looking to do a yarn substitution, I would start by looking at other yarns that are listed as a four medium or a four worsted. But that doesn't mean you can make a one for one exchange. Now over here, it says over four inches by four inches or 10 by 10 centimeters. It says this is how many stitches and rows you are expected to get in knit and crochet and what size knitting needle or crochet hook was recommended.

If you take nothing else from this video, please take this. These are not set in stone. These are the average that people get using these tools on these yarns in stocking stitch or in single crochet. If you are doing a different kind of a stitch pattern, if you're using a different hook or needle, because the designer told you to because you're doing a different kind of a pattern and it, it may block out or block down just because this information is on the ball band. It doesn't mean that those are the only crochet, hook or knitting needle sizes that you can use.

If you're following along with the pattern, you should try the needle and hook that the designer recommended. If you're doing your own thing or you're trying to get gauge in a pattern. These are the hook and needle sizes you might wanna start with. Then of course, there'll be information about where it was made. The last thing I want to talk to you about is dye lot and a lot of yarns now are saying that uh dye lots are not required because every single time the yarn is the same color guaranteed, it's always going to be the same.

There's no dye lot on this yarn and uh I don't wanna insult all the yarn manufacturers out there, but I think that's a slight exaggeration. So I try to get the same dye lot every time. So all the Dyott means is all of the skeins of yarn with the same dyott number were dyed at the same time in the same yarn bath. The odds are they're going to be absolutely identical. Now, I'm not talking about hand dyed yarn.

I'm talking about commercially dyed yarn. If you are at the store and you need four skeins of yarn and there's 10 in the bin, check your dial out, make sure that you've got four from the same dial out. Sometimes it's not going to make a difference, but sometimes it is and it's better to be safe than sorry. I'm Mary Beth Temple. Thanks so much for hanging out here while we discuss all the goodies on the ball band.

And I'll see you again here real soon.