What does Ne 30/1 mean? Yarn count explained

Every yarn order starts with a number such as Ne 30/1. It describes how fine the yarn is, and it affects the weight, feel and price of the fabric made from it.

Ne: the English cotton count

Ne stands for “Number English”, the traditional system for cotton yarn. It tells you how many hanks of 840 yards make up one pound of yarn. The finer the yarn, the more length fits into a pound — so a higher Ne means a finer yarn.

• Ne 10 — thick, coarse yarn
• Ne 30 — medium, the usual count for T-shirt jersey
• Ne 50 — fine, smooth yarn

What the “/1” means

The number after the slash is the number of plies. Ne 30/1 is a single yarn. Ne 30/2 is two Ne 30 yarns twisted together: stronger, and roughly as thick as Ne 15. The notation is not universal, though: some suppliers quote the resultant count of the finished ply instead, so confirm which is meant when you order.

Other systems

Outside the cotton trade, yarn is often given in tex: the weight in grams of 1,000 metres. Tex works the other way round — a higher tex means a thicker yarn. To convert, divide 590.5 by the Ne number. The uses in the table below are ordinary mill practice, not a strict rule.

The metric count Nm (metres per gram) is also widely used, mainly outside the English-speaking cotton trade: Nm = 1.693 × Ne. The wool trade has an English count of its own, Nw, based on 560-yard hanks: for the same yarn it is 50% higher than Ne.

Choosing a count

At the same stitch length, a coarser count gives heavier fabric and a finer count lighter, smoother fabric. Strength and drape depend on the spinning system, the twist and the fabric construction as much as on the count. What really sets the count is the machine and the target fabric weight: each knitting-machine gauge works best within a certain range of counts.