Fabric printing requires a coarse weave to allow more ink to pass through. Half-tone or fine detail printing requires a tighter weave to hold stencil detail. All meshes have to be able to withstand tensioning, stand up to squeegee action, and be impervious to water and reclaiming chemicals. Monofilament polyester has replaced silk as the most widely used fabric in screen printing today. This is the term used to describe the number of threads per inch.
European measurement is threads per cm.
The printer needs to select the proper mesh for the individual job. Fabric printers might use 80 or 110 for applications where they need to lay down light coloured inks on dark fabrics. As the mesh count rises, the amount of ink flow and deposit decreases. Some inks have specific characteristics which put limitations on mesh counts. UV inks require thin ink deposits for proper curing, and won't dry in the screen, so mesh counts above 305 are used.