Wools and Yarns

It is now possible to buy balls of wool in all colours and textures some may have seen a sheep at some point in their existence; others clearly haven’t.

A problem definitely not, a lot of the acrylic based wools are easier to knit with, softer to touch and wash very well in a machine without the risk of them shrinking.  Not to mention in general cheaper.
So have these replaced the natural textures.  Definately not.  Although more expensive, and require specialist cleaning to stop them shrinking the results of knitting with modern wool and silk based threads can be breath-taking when complete and ideal for any special occasion.

Colours and Textures

The variety of colours and textures available in wools means that it is easy to knit a number of striking garments from the simplest of patterns and they will always look original and breathtaking.  Below are some simple squares knitted with a variety of different yarms for you to see what I mean

Weights of Wool or Plys

There are a number of different weights of wool or Plys.  These range from very thin to extremely thick in texture.
If you are working to a pattern, it will instruct you as to the correct weight of wool to use and the appropriate needle sizing to use.  generally the finer wools are used when intricate detail is required (like knitted lacework), where as the heavier weight of wool are often used for larger garments because they knit up quicker.

2 Ply
3 Ply
4 Ply
Double Knitting
Aran
Chunky
Swift

The thinnest wool is 2 Ply (but this is difficult to find now), then 3 Ply and 4 Ply.  These wools could always be recognised by counting the number of theads making up the wool strand.  As you can probably guess 2 Ply contained two thread, three ply has 3 threads and 4 ply contains 4 threads within it.