Hello my friends and welcome to Simply Hooked, a crochet
podcast. I'm your host Marcy, a crochet
designer, mom of two, and creative entrepreneur.
Here we celebrate the joy of crochet and talk about what it
really means to create a life you love through your own unique
gifts. Hello my friends.
So if you are new to crochet, you may have recently taken your
first trip down the yarn aisle of a Michaels or Hobby Lobby and
probably felt a bit overwhelmed. I know I did the first time.
Walking into the yarn aisles can sometimes feel like landing in a
foreign country. It's beautiful.
There's colors everywhere that there's so much texture.
But then you pick up a scheme and suddenly you feel like you
need a translator. There are abbreviations for
stitches. There's words that do not
exactly roll off your tongue. Does anyone remember the first
time they tried to pronounce the word scheme?
Or is it skein? Or is it skein?
I call it scheme. I don't know if that is correct
or not. And then there's that paper
wrapped around the middle of the yarn, and it is covered in tiny
symbols, grids, numbers, laundry icons, like what does all of
this mean? Today we are going to crack the
code of the yarn label. So this is a great episode if
you're just starting out because those labels are not meant to
confuse you or gatekeep the hobby.
They're actually a CHEAT SHEET. They are there to help you
predict exactly how your project will turn out before you ever
pick up your hook. So let's walk through these
labels one little box at a time, because reading the label saves
us from heartbreak later. So not all the yarns work well
for all projects. A yarn that is perfect for a
thick winter scarf might be a terrible choice for a
lightweight summer top. And a yarn that looks beautiful
on the shelf might not hold up well as a baby blanket or
something that needs to be washed frequently.
So understanding the yarn labels helps you choose yarn that fits
the purpose of your project, not just the look, and it will help
you avoid surprises and frustration later on.
So here are the main things the labels are going to tell you.
How thick the yarn is. How much yarn is in the scheme.
What hook size to start with. How to care for your finished
piece. What the yarn is made of and
information about color and the dye lot.
So once you know where to look, it all starts to feel much less
intimidating. So if you have a skein of yarn
nearby that still has the wrapper on it, go ahead and grab
it and we will go through this. So when you look at the wrapper,
you're going to see a few distinct sections.
You'll see the brand name, big and bold on the front.
And then if you rotate it, you'll find all the technical
stuff. And usually these are organized
into little shapes or boxes. So first we're going to look at
the yarn weight. On almost every commercial yarn
label, you are going to see a small icon that looks a little
bit like a black and white scheme of yarn.
And inside that scheme, there will be a number, usually
ranging from zero to seven. And just to clear up confusion,
when I say weight here we're not talking about how heavy the ball
of yarn is on a scale. We're talking about the
thickness of the strand. So yarn weight refers to the
thickness. And the scale works like this.
You've got 0, which is the finest lace weight, super tiny,
think doilies. And then you've got 4, which is
medium or worsted weight. This is the most common weight
of yarn, and then it goes up to seven, which is jumbo.
This is like massive. You would need a very large
crochet hook. So this icon matters because
patterns are written for specific yarn weights.
And if a pattern calls for a #4 medium yarn and you use a #2
fine yarn, your finished project is going to be very tiny.
So and it's not going to look proportionate.
It's so always look for that little scheme symbol with the
number inside. This is really your North star
for sizing. Right next to that, you're
probably going to see the physical weight and length.
This is listed in ounces and grams and then yards and meters.
And this is crucial if you're substituting yarn.
So let's say a pattern tells you that you need 3 schemes of a
specific brand. If you buy a different brand,
you cannot just buy 3 schemes and hope for the best.
You need to look at the yardage. So one brand might have 200
yards in a ball, while another only has 150.
So even if the balls of yarn look the same size, they're not
always match the total yards required, not the number of
schemes and yardage is something I pay the most attention to it.
It certainly took several projects or even a couple of
years to kind of figure out how much yarn I'm going to need for
something like with Omega Rummy I, I tend to design bigger
animals. So when I use burn that blanket
yarn that there's 220 yards in those schemes and recent and I
use like a good bit of it. I would probably say I use close
to 200. So and that's for like a, you
know, probably 14 inch animals, probably 14 inches in length or
so. But recently I designed a
Unicorn with loops and threads Demi parole yarn, which is 152
yards and I literally had inches left.
So I really cut it close with that one and I don't like doing
that because if someone uses your pattern and they only buy
one scheme of it, but they don't crochet with as tight of
attention that I do, then they might be stuck buying 2 schemes
and finding out, you know, when they have one leg left.
And that's just so frustrating to have to go to the store and
get another scheme. So the yardage definitely
matters and something you want to pay attention to.
If you're making something like a blanket though.
I mean, if you're making a baby blanket, maybe you would get 2
schemes. But if you want to make like a
throw blanket for your entire couch, I mean, you might need 8.
It just depends how many yards are in one scheme.
But when you think about making like huge blankets like that,
it's going to it's going to get a little costly depending how
much the yarn is. I mean, if you need to buy 8
skeins anyway. So the next thing you are going
to look at is the fiber content. And this is where you'll see a
list of percentages. So it might say 100% cotton or
90% acrylic slash 10% alpaca. So this tells you how the yarn
is going to behave. So cotton is going to have very
little stretch and is great for durability.
Wool is going to be warm and springy, and acrylic is often
durable and machine washable. That's the best thing about
acrylic. I know some people hate on
acrylic because it's cheap, but it's also just the most
practical. And I'm OK to say that because
acrylic yarns are what make blankets machine washable.
And I don't know about you, but I, I sure prefer that over hand
washing something. So This is why 2 yarns that look
the same on the shelf feel different in your hands.
So if you're making a summer top, check this section to make
sure that you're not buying 100% wool or you're going to be very
hot. Right?
All right, so now we're moving on to hook size.
You're going to see 2 little square icons.
One has a pair of crossed knitting needles and one has a
single crochet hook. And next to the crochet hook
symbol, there's going to be a number like 5.5mm or H-8.
And this is the manufacturer's recommendation for the best hook
size to use with that yarn. However, this is a suggestion
not required. It's not a law.
So if you're making omegurumi, for example, you're going to
want to use a hook size that's smaller than what is recommended
on the label to keep your stitches tight and keep the
stuffing from showing. But if you want to make
something like a flowy shawl or a big blanket, you might want to
actually go up a size. But if you are just starting out
and don't know where to start, just grab the hook size that is
listed on the label and you will be just fine.
All right, so now let's talk about the box that most people
like to ignore, including me. This is the gauge box on the
label. This usually looks like a square
grid with numbers along the side that say 4 by 4 inches or 10 by
10 centimeters. And So what this tells you is if
you use the recommended hook with this yarn and you crochet
this many stitches and this many rows, you will get a four inch
square. So if you're making Omagorami,
you can mostly ignore this. But where gauge does matter is
when you're making a sweater or a hat or something where the
size is critical. So gauge is most important if
you're making wearables. But don't worry if you have
ignored Gage before. You are not alone.
I had one person reach out to me in the last, you know what, 1314
years to to say to tell me that they thought my gauge was wrong
on my patterns. But it's just not something I
pay attention to for Omagoromi. Some people are very particular
about it and if you're making wearables, then yes, like it
matters, but in my world it just doesn't matter as much.
But anyway, that is what gauge means and how to interpret it.
All right, finally, we have a row of little shapes that look
like laundry tags and these are the care instructions.
You will see a little tub of water and this tells you if you
can machine wash it or if there is a hand in the tub.
It means hand wash only if you see a triangle.
This is for bleach rules. And then when you see a square,
this tells you how to dry it. So a circle inside the square
usually means you can tumble dry, while a flat line means you
need to lay flat to dry. So before you start a baby
shower, Kift for example, look at these symbols.
If you give a new mom a blanket that has to be hand washed and
laid flat to dry, she might not love you for it.
For babies and kids, always check the machine wash symbol
first. Most acrylic yarns, like I said
earlier, are usually fine to be machine washed.
I made two, but I made two blankets for my son five years
ago and now I'm using them for the baby and they are still
going strong. I wash those blankets probably
once a week at this point and they're great.
I mean the the colour on one of them has faded a little bit, but
I mean it's minimal and I mean that I don't have any loose
strings coming out. I mean everything's just whole.
It is held up so well. One of them was made with Baby
Burnett velvet yarn and the other one was more standard.
I don't recall the exact scheme but it was probably like a Loops
and Threads impeccable or the Soft Classic.
It was just a standard forested wet yarn, but they're doing
great and they even get, you know, softer the more you wash
them. So it's it's so useful.
If you're making a baby blanket for someone, try to get ones
that that moms can wash in a machine.
She'll thank you for it later. One last thing, so near the
barcode there's usually a color name and a dye lot number, so
yarn is dyed in large batches. So even if you see two schemes
that say the colour is seafoam, if they come from different
batches, 1 might be slightly darker than the other, which is
incredibly frustrating. If I know that I'm going to need
more than one scheme for something, I always hold them up
in the light at the store to make sure they're perfectly
matched. Because it it's really
frustrating when you're buying when you need another scheme,
but you don't know that you're going to need it until days or
weeks later. You get around to it and then
you put it together and then you pulled it up a little bit and
you're like, oh man, the shade, it's just like slightly off.
But that's why it's because the way they're manufactured.
If they're in different dye lots, sometimes they can just be
slightly different. So just something to keep in
mind. But that is what that number
means. So at the end of the day, our
yarn label isn't a test that you have to pass.
It's really just a tool in your kit.
And once you know what those little grids and skiing icons
mean, shopping becomes less overwhelming and a lot more
empowering. I mean, once you know, you don't
have to guess anymore and you can start choosing yarns with
confidence. So the next time you're standing
in the yarn aisle holding a scheme in your hands and reading
those labels, I hope that you will remember this episode and I
really hope that it is helpful. All right, friends, that is it
for this week. Please visit marcyma.co to
browse my crochet patterns. I have a new Unicorn pattern
that is dropping on Tuesday the 13th and it's super fun.
And also come join us on school. I have a free community in
school and we you're working on a hippo lovey right now for our
January crochet along so and that's it for today.
I will see you all next week.