Yarn glossary
What the letters and numbers on a cone label mean.
- Air-textured yarn (ATY)
- Filament yarn given loops and bulk with a jet of compressed air; looks spun, keeps filament strength. Called Airtex in Surat.
- Bi-shrinkage yarn (BSY)
- Yarn combining filaments that shrink by different amounts in finishing, giving a fuller, softer fabric.
- Bright (BRT)
- Lustre with little or no delustrant: the yarn shines. Super bright (SBRT) shines more.
- Cationic dyeable (CD)
- Polyester modified to take cationic dyes, for brighter colours and two-tone effects.
- Crape yarn
- Filament yarn with a very high twist that makes woven fabric crinkle into crepe or georgette.
- Denier
- Weight in grams of 9,000 metres of yarn. Higher denier, thicker yarn.
- DTY
- Draw textured yarn: POY drawn and false-twist textured, with crimp, bulk and stretch.
- English count (Ne)
- Spun-yarn count: number of 840-yard hanks per pound. Higher count, finer yarn.
- FDY
- Fully drawn yarn: smooth, strong, lustrous filament yarn, drawn completely at spinning.
- Filament count
- Number of continuous filaments in a yarn: the second number in 75/36.
- Intermingle (HIM, SIM, NIM)
- Air knots that hold filaments together: high, semi or non intermingle.
- Monofilament
- Yarn of a single filament, written as denier/1; gives clear, glassy effects.
- Ply
- Number of yarns twisted together: 2/24 is two plies of 24s.
- POY
- Partially oriented yarn: the base filament for texturising into DTY or twisting.
- Semi-dull (SD)
- Lustre with a little titanium dioxide for a soft, matt look; the everyday choice.
- Twist (TPM)
- Turns per metre put into a yarn. Very high twist makes crape yarn.