Clothing and Health: An Elementary Textbook of Home Making

by Helen Kinne; Anna M. Cooley

SOME FACTS TO REMEMBER IN PURCHASING WOOL CLOTHING

Why does the manufacturer use woolen yarn in weaving some materials and worsted yarn for others? If one knows this, it will be a guide in purchasing wool materials. The Pleasant Valley girls know.

The difference between woolen and worsted yarns. Before you can answer the question for this lesson, you must learn the difference between woolen and worsted yarns. Worsted yarn is prepared from the sheep giving long wool. It is prepared by processes which comb it until all the short fibers are removed and only the long straight ones are used. This combing prepares the long wool fibers for spinning so that they lie parallel. This makes an expensive yarn because so much is combed away. This fine combed worsted yarn is used for high grade worsted materials, as some cheviots or fine tweeds, and for underwear.

Courtesy of M. J. Whittall.

Fig. 123.—Wool combing for high grade materials. There is much waste.

Woolen yarn is not combed to remove the short fibers. It is, instead, carded a great deal so that the wool fibers are well mixed and the serrations of the tiny fibers arranged so that they will interlock, when put in water of high temperature, and the gelatinous scales are opened up. Woolen yarn is woven into broadcloths and meltons. After the weaving the cloth is put into vats where the temperature opens up the serrations and the scales interlock, and make a close, smooth piece of cloth. This is called fulling. Isn't this interesting? Do you see why the manufacturer uses worsted instead of woolen yarn for making underwear? If worsted yarn were used for making broadcloth, there would not be the same close finish. The worsted yarn is combed and the fibers are not in position to interlock as in the woolen yarn (Fig. 124). Can you answer the question now why worsted yarn is used sometimes and woolen at others?

Fig. 124.—This shows the difference in the slivers of wool and worsted yarn. A is the woolen yarn, well mixed; B is the worsted yarn, well combed.

After the yarn has been spun, it is woven into cloth just as cotton is prepared and woven. Woolen yarn is fuzzy; cloth made from it is woven loosely and then it is put into vats and shrunken or fulled until the cloth is compact, as broadcloth.