The world of yarns and fibers has a language all its own and I thought you might find it interesting and maybe even a little helpful to know what some of these words mean and how they apply to your Pussy Cap. This glossary is a work in progress and more definitions will be added as time goes on.
Loft
Loft has to do the spaces between the fibers that are spun together to make yarn. If you take six small strands of wool for example, and twist them together very tightly the finished yarn won't have much loft. But if you take those same six strands of wool and twist them together loosely the resulting yarn will have more loft because of the bigger spaces in between the fibers.
Loft then is mostly about tightness or how much space there is between the fibers - the bigger the spaces the greater the loft of the yarn, while tightly spun fibers will result in a yarn with less loft.
In simpler terms, loft could also be called the squish factor.
When it comes to crocheting, loft can also refer to the amount of space between the strands of yarn. When I use a bigger hook or a looser stitch in the crocheting the cap will have more loft than if I use a smaller hook and tighter stitches.
If you look closely at the picture below you'll see that there's a lot of space in between the yarns. That's where the loft comes from.
By its nature, crocheting usually creates a lofty, stretchable fabric, which is why it works so well for beanie caps.
Handspun
When fibers are twisted together on a machine to make yarn they're referred to as being millspun or commercially spun. When somebody sits at a spinning wheel and runs the fibers through their hands, twisting them as they go, that is what we call handspun yarn. Another kind of handspinning involves the use of drop spindles rather than a spinning wheel.
Handpainted - Hand-dyed
Simply put, a handpainted or hand-dyed yarn is one where the fibers or skeins of yarn are hand colored in small quantities by a person rather than in large lots by a machine at the mill. Above and to your right are examples of hand-dyed yarns.
Hand
The word we use to describe how a yarn feels in our hands is, simply enough, its hand. A yarn can have a lot of different qualities, like its insulating properties or its strength, stretch or size. But those are qualities that don't necessarily talk about how the yarn feels when we're holding it. Softness and smoothness for example, are a couple of the factors involved when refering to a yarn's hand.
A yarn that has a lot of loft to it can feel squishy and flexible while a tightly spun yarn can feel stiffer and denser once worked up.
Certain grades of alpaca yarns are said to have a smooth hand because the alpaca fibers themselves are smooth to begin with and maintain that quality once they're spun into yarn.
When we talk about silk we often refer to its drape. Think of a silk shirt or blouse that you have and how differently it drapes across your shoulders than a cotton one does. That drape is part of the silk's hand.
Fabric
After yarn is crocheted, knit or woven the result is fabric. The main difference between fabrics that are woven in a mill and fabrics that are created by crocheting or knitting is how big the threads or yarns are to begin with and how close they end up next to each other. Most fabrics created in mills are made from tiny threads that are woven very closely together on a mechanical loom.
The basic difference between thread and yarn is their size since both can be made from the exact same fibers.
Cotton sheets for example, can use hundreds of threads per inch while a normal yarn used for my Pussy Caps might use the equivalent of only six or seven strands of yarn per inch.
Crocheting and knitting both employ a series of knots, loops or stitches, which creates a more textured, lofty fabric than weaving because of the spaces in between the strands of yarn.
When I talk about the fabric in a Pussy Cap I'm referring to the crocheted yarn rather than the cap itself.
Generally speaking, handspun yarns are less uniformly round than millspun yarns, having varying degrees of thickness and thinness along their length. The variations in thickness and thinness give handspun yarns their texture and visual interest and are often what distinguish them from the perfectly rounded millspun yarns.
The perfect roundness of millspun yarns tends to show off the stitches better in crocheted and knit fabrics while the handspun yarns have a tendency to draw more attention to the texture of the yarn itself and the patterns created by its color.
How soft is the yarn? How squishy is it? How much does it drape? Does it feel smooth and buttery or does it have a stiffer, coarser feel to it?
For those of us who crochet or knit hand can also refer to the way the yarn feels as it moves along itself or in, out and over the hooks and needles.
To your left is a great example of the how the size variations in handspun yarn creates a lot of texture and visual appeal. Notice how some of the yarn appears to be thick and puffy while other parts of it are much thinner. Compare that to the millspun yarns above that are rounder and more uniform in size.
Both handspun and millspun yarns have their unique place in the pantheon of knit or crocheted garments. One isn't necessarily better than the other, just different.
The coloring of yarn can be done in a lot of different ways. One of the most common methods is dipping the raw fibers or a finished skein of yarn into a pot of hot water that's been infused with special dyes. These pots are referred to as dyepots or colorpots.
To your left are angora fibers from Denmark that have just come out of Lisa Souza's dyepots.
When raw fibers like this are colored before being spun we refer to it as hand-dying, or as the old saying goes, "dyed in the wool."
Another popular method for coloring yarn is to take a brush or syringe and paint the colors directly onto the fibers or yarn, which allows for a whole different level of creativity in the way colors are applied. This is called handpainting and is a considerably different process than hand-dying.
Sometimes the fibers are dyed before they're spun into yarn and then dyed again, or overdyed, after the spinning. This further increases the range of possibilities when it comes to coloring yarn and often adds a lot of depth and subtlety to the colors.
