Talk:Hank (unit of measure)

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hank —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.16.214.27 (talk) 01:50, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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The disambiguation page for Skein directs you to this page if you are talking about a skein of yarn. However, there is no mention on the page of a skein and how it might differ from a hank. I gather from the caption to one of the photos that there is a difference between them, and I suspect it is how they are created, with the hank being coiled and twisted and the skein being "rolled" in some manner. It would be useful to have either some description here about what a skein is, or to have a completely new page about a skein. (Unfortunately I don't know enough to add anything useful here.) Dyork (talk) 17:53, 10 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I just had the exact same experience. I think someone messed up: either there should be a separate article on "skeins", or what a skein is needs to be explained in this article somewhere, which it currently is not. I think someone messed up... But I, too, am a novice in this area. Darn. KDS4444^Talk 17:29, 7 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- Dyork KDS4444 OK, now that makes three of us. I too searched "skein", found the disambiguation page, picked "Hank" and found no mention of the word "skein" here. I think I will alert the Wikiproject at the top of this talk page, and maybe edit the skein disambiguation page, or leave a message on its talk page, or something. This has happened three times that we know of, so there's a problem. Chrisrus (talk) 05:19, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- What we would call a Skein where I grew up is what Americans call hanks, Americans call what I would call a ball a skein, so there are regional versions of the word that makes things more confusing. So on one hand an American Hank and a Newzealand (and possibly English and Australian) Skein are exactley the same thing, on the other hand an American Skein and and New Zealand hank are completley different. Kathelyne A (talk) 10:05, 19 April 2017 (UTC)Kathelyne_A[reply]
  - Kathelyne A, now we are getting somewhere. Can you find any published sources to back that up? Because if it is true, that might solve our problem here (also: how does an American skein differ from a New Zealand hank? Am quite curious). KDS4444 (talk) 17:34, 19 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    - KDS4444 unfortunatley not, it's something I just discovered recentley by talking to Americans online about knitting (someone asked if people rewound their skeins before knitting, but posted a picture of a ball of yarn). The closest I can get to sources is an English source defining skein and and american source defining one and the definitions being different. In New Zealand a skein is something you make on a skein winder or niddy noddy. It is loops of yarn going round and round. Americans call certin types of balls of wool skeins. THey call what they make on a skein maker or niddy noddy a hank. Kathelyne A (talk) 10:40, 23 April 2017 (UTC)Kathelyne_A[reply]

For (hand-spinners) references regarding the definition of the skein, see Abby Franquemont, Respect the Spindle, p. 62-63. Maggie Casey, Start Spinning, p. 68-69, Clare Boley Hand spinning and natural dying p. 32-33, see also index "skein" and glossary, where she defines, "skein," as, "a hank of wool."

All these sources seem to agree entirely with Kathelyne, and I believe the first two of those books are American, so I would question whether the Americans do, in general, really call a ball a skein - I think I'd want a precise source. It's easy enough to be randomly inaccurate, and I don't think there's much reason to distinguish between the two when you're knitting. Besides which, often if you buy a skein for knitting it will be twisted, which can make it appear superficially similar to a ball, particularly with a paper info band.

Anyway, from the hand-spinners point of view, a skein is what you get if you wind the wool from a spindle or the bobbin (from a conventional wheel) onto a niddy-noddy or (surprise!) skeinwinder, (or any improvised device that gives a similar result).

The basic form is a long loop of yarn running in the same direction round and round a circle. It tends to be necessary to loosely tie it in several places with scrap yarn to stop it separating or tangling.

It's a useful technique because this loop can be hung open to see how the twist is "behaving," and it is loose enough to wash or dye (if you tried to dye a conventional ball, the outer strands would typically protect the inner from the dye). Washing yarn in this form can be used to relax and even out the effects of spinning on the fibres, improving the quality and making it easier to handle in use. It can also be weighted to deal with kinks, if the twist is still too active. I can't comment on what any of this translates into in commercial factory spinning.

The twisted-untwisted picture is quite correct as far as I can see: it would only take one movement to pull the twisted one back into the loop you'd get off a niddy-noddy. Ditto the three defined as hanks on the other picture - though I took off the comment about the others being skeins in the absence of a reference that the word is used in that definition. I think they are definitely balls - you could not put your hands into them and pull them into a single loop. A ball is fundamentally a different "shape": balled yarn has been continuously wrapped around itself mushrooming outwards in all three dimensions. A skein - or hank if the two are the same - has been wrapped around an object to create a long open loop.

I'd also protest that this article is completely confused as to whether or not the hank is a unit of measure or a particular way of winding, but perhaps that's for another time! When clarity is achieved things that link or redirect here are likely to need bringing in line.

FloweringOctopus (talk) 12:14, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In any case, I believed I have now dealt with the problem: I found a source that says a skein is 1/6th of a hank. That may be the best we can do here given the internationalization and vagueness of the term. KDS4444 (talk) 23:16, 24 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Separate question regarding the other meaning of the unit of measure... "In the meat industry, a sheep, lamb or hog sausage casing is sold by the hank. This unit of measure equals 100 yards (91 m)." ...how many animals does it take to sum up to three hundred feet of intestine? Is there a fractional unit of hank which would more nearly match the typical length within one animal? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.13.14.205 (talk • contribs) 19:21, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]