Worsted Lastings.—A smooth, warp-faced, sateen-weave fabric woven from worsted warp and weft, having a plain-weave effect on the back of the fabric. Generally piece-dyed black. Worsted Lastings average 30 to 31 inches in width and 29 to 30 yards in length per piece. Met with in three grades of quality. Average Bradford price for the best grade was, for the 10 years ended 1914, about 31s. 5d. per piece.
Worsted Yarn is a straight yarn, i.e., a yarn produced from straight fibres; it is invaluable in the production of textile fabrics in which lustre and uniformity of surface are the chief characteristics. They enter into the manufacture of Zephyr, Saxony, Serge, Bunting, Rep, etc. Yarn is measured by a system of "counts"—the number of yards of yarn to the pound. It is put up in hanks of 560 yards each, and the number of such hanks that are necessary to weigh 1 pound determines the count, so that if No. 30 yarn is mentioned, it is a yarn 30 hanks of which, or 16,800 yards, weigh 1 pound. The main characteristic of worsted yarn is the arrangement of the fibres, which are so arranged that they are parallel to each other in a longitudinal direction.
The yarn thus produced is a smooth, lustrous, and level yarn, these qualities being absent in woollen yarn. The fibres which constitute a worsted yarn are more readily separated from the body of the yarn or cloth than in the case of a woollen yarn.
W-Pile.—This term is used to designate a fast pile and originates in the form taken by a piece of fast pile when removed from the fabric. In a fast-pile fabric the pile cannot be driven out through the back of the fabric by pressure applied to the pile, owing to the fact that the pile is virtually bound into the material and held in place by two threads from the top and one from behind. [See Pile Weave].
Wright's Underwear, Imitation.—This class of underwear is essentially a knit cotton underwear made from a combination of bleached cotton yarn and dyed yarn. The knit fabric is raised on the inside. The dyed yarn used in the manufacture of this class of underwear is often of a blue or brown colour.
Yarn, Cotton, Grey or Bleached.—In its unqualified form the term Cotton Yarn is used to describe "single" yarns, and Cotton Yarn, Grey or Bleached, is understood to be cotton thread and carded yarn, warps or warp yarns, in singles, whether in bundles, skeins, or cops, not advanced beyond the condition of singles by grouping or twisting two or more single yarns together and not advanced beyond the condition of bleached by dyeing, colouring, printing, gassing, or mercerising.
Cotton yarn is subdivided into three groups,—coarse, medium, and fine—according to count:—