Yarn is a continuous length of fibers, spun or twisted, and used in the production of textiles.  It’s usually found as an adjunct to a spinner’s or seamstress’s tool:  e.g., a drop-spindle, niddy-noddy, quill of yarn, or shuttle.  However, when collected into a visible mass, yarn can be a charge in its own right.  One form is the simple “ball of yarn”, which Society heralds sometimes call a “clew of yarn” for the sake of a cant; the charge is found in the canting arms (Portuguese novelo) of Navaes or Novais, c.1540 [Nobreza xxviii].  Society practice grants no difference between a ball of yarn and a roundel.

There is also the “hank of yarn (or cotton)”, a skein of yarn wound and bound, as in the canting arms of Cotton, 1335 [DBA2 381; Parker 306].  The hank of yarn is palewise by default.  See also knot.

Elena Carlisle bears:  Per pall inverted Or, azure and argent, two domestic cats sejant guardant respectant counterchanged sable and argent and a ball of yarn azure.

Effie Scarlet bears:  Gules, three clews of yarn each transfixed by two double-pointed knitting needles in saltire argent.

Isabel Moundoghter bears as a badge:  A clew of yarn pendant from a hank of cotton fesswise argent.