Encyclopedia
- 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 is a long continuous length of interlocked fibers, suitable for use in the production of
textiles,
sewing,
crocheting,
knitting,
weaving and
ropemaking. Yarn is any fiber used to construct a fabric. Thread is any fiber used to sew two pieces of fabric together.
Materials
Yarn can be made from any number of natural or synthetic fibers.
The most common natural fibre is
cotton, which is typically spun into fine yarn for mechanical weaving or knitting into
cloth.
The most commonly used animal fibre is
wool harvested from
sheep. For hand knitting and hobby knitting, thick wool yarns are the most common kind used.
Other animal fibers used include
alpaca, angora, and cashmere. More rarely, yarn may be spun from
camel,
yak,
possum, cat,
dog,
wolf,
rabbit, or
buffalo hair, and even
turkey or
ostrich feathers.
Other natural fibers that can be used for yarn include
silk,
linen, and
cotton. These tend to be much less elastic, and retain less warmth 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. Other plant fibers which can be spun include
bamboo,
hemp, and
soy fiber.
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.
Construction
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 together to make a thicker yarn.
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 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.
Novelty yarns are frequently made from
nylon.
One variety of novelty yarn is called
boucle,
textured or
flammé. Yarns of this type involve at least one or two strands of regular yarn twisted together with something else to make an interesting texture. To make boucle, the tension on one strand, as it is being spun, must be different from the other. The extra element can be a metallic thread, or a much-thicker or much-narrower strand of yarn, or yarn that varies between thick and thin. Some companies have come to put twin yarns on the market to show off combinations of one regular yarn and a novelty yarns in assorted colours or even two different types of novelty yarns.
Another type of novelty yarn is
eyelash yarn. In general, eyelash yarns will be hairy and have the general aspect of faux fur once knitted up in a garment. The texture and composition of such yarns have been explored by many companies, and there are innumerable types of eyelash yarns. The most prominent types would probably be 100% polyester with a straight and relatively short hair. The hair can be curly. The core and hair of the thread can be metallic, and the hairs can sometimes be two different lengths. Some of the drawbacks of eyelash yarns is that they tend to have poor stitch definition, and that they are not flattering to curvy figures as they add bulk to a garment, so they are mostly used for accessories such as scarves.
Another type of novelty yarn is
ribbon yarn. They are not the kind of ribbons used in sewing and millinery, but are rather ribbon yarns made especially for knitting, usually in a tubular form. Ribbon yarns must have give and elasticity.
Another type of novelty yarn is
ladder yarn, which means they are constructed like ladders, with a horizontal stripe of material suspended between two thinner threads.
Very often, novelty yarns will involve a lot of colour change. Most often these will be obtained through the print process, in which a fiber will have different colours through a dyeing process. Sometimes the colour will come through the sequence in which different colours are spun together. In some yarns the same process is used, but at the same time the color repeats are long enough to enable a self-striping feature. If the proper number of stitches is cast, then stripes will appear as the yarn is knitted into a garment. Sock yarn companies have evidently taken a great interest in self striping yarn. Such yarns have a wide array of different effects that can be obtained by knitting the yarn in the round over the number of stitches normally cast for a sock.
Some novelty yarns are even more extravagant and can be hard to describe. Katia's
Rumba Mix is a ribbon that has changes in fiber within the same length involving changes of texture and changes of color. Louisa Harding's
Sari Ribbon is a very wide multicolored synthetic ribbon with a streak of glittering fiber woven in its middle. Filati Bertagna's
Aymara is a very fine alpaca-wool blend that is knitted in the round over a couple of stitches to make up a bigger thread.
Measurement
Yarn quantities are usually measured by weight. In the United States, balls of yarn for handcrafts are usually sold in three-ounce, four-ounce, six-ounce, and eight-ounce skeins. In Europe, yarn is often sold in increments of 25 grams, with 25g, 50g, and 100g being common quantities. These measurements are taken at a standard temperature and humidity, because yarn can absorb moisture from the air.
There are several thicknesses of yarn, also referred to as weight. There is an industry-standard system for measuring this, numbering the weights from 1 to 5 , but it is not precise and tends to be subjective. There are also names for the various weights of yarn, but they are also subjective. From finest to thickest, they are called lace, fingering, sock, sport, double-knit , worsted, aran, bulky, and super-bulky. This is also not precise; fiber artists disagree about where on the continuum each lies, and the precise relationships between the sizes.
A more precise measurement of yarn weight, often used by weavers, is wraps per inch . The yarn is wrapped snugly around a ruler and the number of wraps that fit in an inch are counted.
Labels on yarn for handcrafts often include information on gauge , known in the UK as tension, which is a measurement of how many stitches and rows are produced per inch or per centimeter on a specified size of knitting needle or crochet hook.
In Europe textile engineers often use the unit tex, which is the weight in grams of a kilometer of yarn. Decitex is the weight in grams of 10 kilometers of yarn. Many other units have been used over time by different industries.
Color
Yarn may be used undyed, or may be colored with natural or artificial
dyes. Most yarns have a single uniform hue, but there is also a wide selection of variegated yarns:
- heathered or tweed: yarn with flecks of different colored fiber
- ombre: variegated yarn with light and dark shades of a single hue
- colorway: variegated yarn with two or more distinct hues
- self-striping: yarn dyed with lengths of color that will automatically create stripes in a knitted or crocheted object
- marled: yarn made from strands of different-colored yarn twisted together, sometimes in closely-related hues
Uses
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.
Manufacture
Yarn is manufactured by either a spinning or air texturizing process. Yarn manufacturing was one of the very first processes that was industrialized.
Yarn used for
fabric manufacture is made by spinning short lengths of 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.
See also
External links
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- from Knitter's Review
- : Wraps per inch method
- for yarn, needle and hook labeling
- Yarn & Garments manufacturers
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- The world's best yarn store with an extremely knowledgeable staff.
