Yarn

This article is about yarn fiber. A yarn is also a type of long and involved story, such as a shaggy dog story or a campfire yarn.

Yarn.

Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibers, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving and ropemaking. Yarn can be made from any number of synthetic or natural fibers. Yarn can be made from a variety of natural fibers including wool, alpaca, angora, cotton, silk, bamboo, hemp, and soy. Less commonly, yarn is spun from camel, yak, possum, cat, dog, wolf, rabbit, buffalo hair and even turkey feathers. Commercial yarns are often made from synthetic fibers or a combination of natural and synthetic fibers. Very thin yarn is referred to as thread. Yarns are made up of any number of plies, each ply being a single spun yarn. These single plys of yarn are twisted in the opposite direction (plied) together to make a thicker yarn.

Spools of thread.

In some cases, thread may be monofilament, in which case it is a single fiber. The only natural fiber that is counted as monofilament is silk.

A Spinning Jenny, spinning machine which initiated the Industrial Revolution.

Cotton being spun.

Yarn is manufactured by either a spinning or air texturizing (commonly referred to as taslanizing) process. Yarn manufacturing was one of the very first processes that was industrialized.

Yarn used for fabric manufacture is made by spinning short lengths various types of fibers. Synthetic fibers which have high strength, artificial lusture, and fire retardant qualities are blended with natural fibers which have good water absorbance and skin comforting qualities, in different proportions to manufacture yarn for fabric. The most widely used blends are cotton-polyester and wool-acrylic fiber blends.

Yarn drying after being dyed in the early American tradition, at Conner Prairie living history museum.

Knitters often use worsted-weight yarn spun from the wool of a sheep, though mohair, angora, and alpaca are also well-known. Natural fibres such as these have the advantage of being slightly elastic and very breathable, while trapping a great deal of air, making for a fairly warm fabric.

Other natural fibers that can be used for yarn include silk, linen, and cotton. These tend to be much less elastic than the animal-hair yarns, though they can be stronger in some cases. The finished product will also look rather different from the woolen yarns.

A number of synthetic materials are also commonly made into yarn, chiefly acrylic. All-acrylic yarns are available, as are wool-acrylic blends in various proportions. Some other synthetics are available as well; yarn designed for use in socks frequently contains a small percentage of nylon, and numerous specialty yarns exist.

A relatively recent trend is the novelty yarn. Typically these involve at least one or two strands of regular yarn twisted together with something else to make an interesting texture. The extra element can be a metallic thread, a much-thicker or much-narrower strand of yarn, yarn that varies between thick and thin or yarn that has short bits of plastic sticking out at ninety degrees from the main strand.

Yarn is usually measured by weight. In the United States, balls of yarn are usually sold in three-ounce, four-ounce, six-ounce, and eight-ounce skeins. In Europe the units used by textile engineers is often tex, which is the weight in grams of a kilometer of yarn. Many other units have been used over time by different industries.

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Yarn

See also:

• urban legend
• textile manufacturing

External links

• Craft Yarn Council of America
• Standards & Guidelines for yarn, needle and hook labeling