Yarn count converter
Convert yarn and fibre thickness between denier, tex, cotton count and metric count.
That's about the same as 15-denier tights. A 100 g ball would hold about 60,000 meters.
What it means
How thick is that?
Reference values are typical. Hair varies a lot between people, and wool weights between brands.
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Your yarn in every unit
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Three things worth knowing
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Denier ÷ 9 = tex
Sheer tights are about 15 denier, which is 1.7 tex. Opaque tights start around 40 denier.
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A coin and a skein
The denier was a small French coin, used as a weight for silk: denier is grams per 9,000 meters. Tex, grams per kilometer, was brought in as the one universal system.
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Counts run backwards
Ne 40 cotton is finer than Ne 20, while 40 denier is heavier than 20 denier. Always check which kind of count a label uses.
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Background
About yarn counts
Yarn is too soft to measure with a ruler, so it is weighed instead. Direct systems, tex and denier, weigh a fixed length: the thicker the yarn, the bigger the number.
Indirect counts, such as cotton count Ne and metric count Nm, measure how much length makes a fixed weight. There the thicker yarn gets the smaller number.