Yarns

In a relatively few cases fabric is produced directly from fibres, for example felts and non-wovens. Normally the fibres are converted into a yarn or thread prior to fabric production. Yarns are produced by twisting staple fibres or continuous filaments together to form a long, cohesive, stable strand.

Spinning is the process used to convert staple fibres into yarns. The different processes are designed to clean and parallelise the fibres, draw them out to a fine strand, and twist them to keep them together and give them strength. Before spinning the fibres must be purified to remove impurities which would interfere with the process. For example, cotton is ginned to remove the fibres from the seeds and trash, and wool is scoured to remove grease and dirt. After purification the fibres are spun on a system which is appropriate to the characteristics of the fibre.

Traditional spinning systems for natural fibres comprise a series of operations to produce the type of yarn desired. The operations may include opening and carding to loosen, clean and blend the fibres, drawing to parallelise and blend the fibres, combing to separate and parallelise the long fibres, further drawing to reduce the size of the strand and finally spinning to insert twist and produce the final weight or count of yarn. Combed yarns which are produced from the longer fibres tend to be fine, smooth and hard wearing; worsted and combed cotton. Yarns which are carded but not combed tend to bulky, soft and fuzzy; woollen and coarser cottons.