search

Found

info Overview

Identify the Craft Yarn Council weight of any yarn from its wraps per inch. Maps your WPI across the 7 standard weights, Lace to Super Bulky, with needles.

📘 How to Use

  1. Wind the yarn snugly around a pencil or ruler for one inch with no gaps
  2. Count the strands that fit in that inch and type the number in the field
  3. Read off the matched weight, CYC number and suggested needle size

Wraps Per Inch Yarn Weight Calculator

WPI

Wind the yarn snugly around a ruler for one inch, then count and enter the strands.

1 20 40

Matched weight

—

CYC number — / —

Also known as —
Suggested needle —

Full 7-step CYC scale

info

WPI shifts with how tightly you wrap, so results are a guide. Always check a gauge swatch for your actual fabric.

※ Needle sizes follow the official Craft Yarn Council Standard Yarn Weight System.

※ CYC does not publish official WPI cutoffs and the ranges overlap between adjacent weights, so these bands use the values common to CYC-based WPI charts.

grid_view Related

Article

Wraps Per Inch Yarn Weight Calculator｜Identify Any Unlabeled Yarn

Find the Craft Yarn Council weight of a mystery skein from its wraps per inch (WPI). Maps your count across the 7 standard weights, Lace to Super Bulky, with a suggested needle size and common names.

💡 About this tool

Every knitter and crocheter ends up with a stash of label-less yarn: thrift-store finds, gifted balls, leftovers rewound off the band. Without a weight, you can't pick the right needle or trust that a pattern's gauge will work out.

WPI (wraps per inch) solves it. Wind the yarn snugly around a pencil for one inch (about 2.54 cm), lay the strands side by side without overlap, and count them. More wraps means a thinner yarn; fewer wraps means a thicker one. Enter that number here and the tool places it on the CYC scale, from Lace through Super Bulky, and shows the matching needle range and aliases like "worsted" or "DK". The slider mirrors your input and the matched row is highlighted in the full scale.

🧐 Frequently asked questions

Does the diameter of the pencil change the result? No. WPI only counts how many strands line up across one inch, so the diameter of the object doesn't matter. Any cylindrical thing works.

How tightly should I wrap? Snug, but not stretched. Pulling tight squeezes in extra strands and reads thinner; wrapping loose reads thicker. Keep the wraps flat and touching.

Higher WPI means a thicker yarn, right? The opposite. A high WPI is a thin yarn (lace sits at 30+), and a low WPI is a thick yarn (super bulky is 6 or under).

Why are the ranges approximate? The CYC publishes the weight categories and needle sizes, but not official WPI cutoffs, and the bands overlap between neighbors. Treat the result as a starting point.

My yarn lands right on a boundary, which way do I round? Either neighbor is plausible at a boundary. Knit a quick gauge swatch on the suggested needle and let the fabric decide.

📚 Why spinners invented WPI

WPI started in the handspinning world, not the pattern aisle. Handspun yarn never comes with a label, so spinners needed a fast way to size their finished yarn into a category. The trick was simple enough that knitters and crocheters borrowed it for mystery commercial yarn too. It's a rough gauge of category, not a precise measurement of mass, which is exactly why a swatch still has the final say before you cast on a whole project.