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Worsted ( or ) is a high-quality type of wool
yarn Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, used in sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery, ropemaking, and the production of textiles. '' Thread'' is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern ...
, the
fabric Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, and different types of fabric. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is no ...
made from this yarn, and a
yarn weight Yarn weight refers to the thickness of yarn used by knitters, weavers, crocheters and other fiber artists. Importance Changing yarn weight or needle size can have a significant impact on the finished project, so standardized systems have been ...
category. The name derives from
Worstead Worstead is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the North Norfolk Non-metropolitan district, district of Norfolk, England. In the United Kingdom Census 2001, 2001 census the parish had a population of 862 in 365 households ...
(from
Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
''Wurðestede'', "enclosure place"), a village in the English county of
Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...
. That village, together with
North Walsham North Walsham is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the North Norfolk district of the county of Norfolk, England. The town is located south of Cromer and Norwich is south. Demography The civil parish has an area of ...
and
Aylsham Aylsham ( or ) is a historic market town and civil parish on the River Bure in north Norfolk, England, nearly north of Norwich. The river rises near Melton Constable, upstream from Aylsham and continues to Great Yarmouth and the North Sea ...
, formed a manufacturing centre for yarn and cloth in the 12th century, when pasture
enclosure Enclosure or inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land", enclosing it, and by doing so depriving commoners of their traditional rights of access and usage. Agreements to enc ...
and liming rendered the East Anglian soil too rich for the older agrarian sheep breeds. In the same period, many weavers from the
County of Flanders The County of Flanders was one of the most powerful political entities in the medieval Low Countries, located on the North Sea coast of modern-day Belgium and north-eastern France. Unlike the neighbouring states of Duchy of Brabant, Brabant and ...
moved to Norfolk. "Worsted" yarns/fabrics are distinct from
woollen Woolen (American English) or woollen (Commonwealth English) is a type of yarn made from carded wool. Woolen yarn is soft, light, stretchy, and full of air. It is thus a good insulator, and makes a good knitting yarn. Woolen yarn is in contrast t ...
s (though both are made from sheep's wool): the former is considered stronger, finer, smoother, and harder than the latter. Worsted was made from the long-staple pasture wool from
sheep breeds This is a list of breeds of domestic sheep. Domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are partially derived from mouflon (''Ovis gmelini'') stock, and have diverged sufficiently to be considered a different species. Some sheep breeds have a hair coat and a ...
such as Teeswaters, Old Leicester Longwool and
Romney Marsh Romney Marsh is a sparsely populated wetland area in the counties of Kent and East Sussex in the south-east of England. It covers about . The Marsh has been in use for centuries, though its inhabitants commonly suffered from malaria until the ...
. Pasture wool was not
card Card or The Card may refer to: Common uses * Plastic cards of various types: **Bank card **Credit card **Debit card **Payment card * Playing card, used in games * Printed circuit board, or card * Greeting card, given on special occasions Arts an ...
ed; instead it was washed, gilled and
comb A comb is a tool consisting of a shaft that holds a row of teeth for pulling through the hair to clean, untangle, or style it. Combs have been used since prehistoric times, having been discovered in very refined forms from settlements dating ba ...
ed (using heated long-tooth metal combs), oiled and finally spun. When woven, worsteds were scoured but not fulled. Both worsted and woolen spun wool are used for knitted fabrics. Worsted wool fabric is typically used in the making of tailored garments such as suits. In tropical-weight worsteds, the use of tightly spun, straightened wool combined with a looser weave permits air to flow through the fabric. Worsted is also used for
carpet A carpet is a textile floor covering typically consisting of an upper layer of Pile (textile), pile attached to a backing. The pile was traditionally made from wool, but since the 20th century synthetic fiber, synthetic fibres such as polyprop ...
s,
clothing Clothing (also known as clothes, garments, dress, apparel, or attire) is any item worn on a human human body, body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin s ...
,
hosiery Hosiery, (, ) also referred to as legwear, describes garments worn directly on the foot, feet and human leg, legs. The term originated as the collective term for products of which a maker or seller is termed a hosier; and those products are also ...
,
glove A glove is a garment covering the hand, with separate sheaths or openings for each finger including the thumb. Gloves protect and comfort hands against cold or heat, damage by friction, abrasion or chemicals, and disease; or in turn to provide a ...
s and
baize Baize is a coarse woollen (or in cheaper variants cotton) cloth, similar in texture to felt, but more durable. History A mid-17th-century English wikt:ditty, ditty – much quoted in histories of ale and beer brewing in England – r ...
.


Manufacture

Worsted cloth, archaically also known as
stuff Stuff, stuffed, and stuffing may refer to: *Physical matter *General, unspecific things, or entities Arts, media, and entertainment Books *''Stuff'' (1997), a novel by Joseph Connolly *''Stuff'' (2005), a book by Jeremy Strong Fictional c ...
, is lightweight and has a coarse texture. The weave is usually
twill Twill is a type of textile Textile is an Hyponymy and hypernymy, umbrella term that includes various Fiber, fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, Staple (textiles)#Filament fiber, filaments, Thread (yarn), threads, and d ...
or plain. Twilled fabrics such as
whipcord Whipcord is the name for either a fabric or a form of braided cord. Fabric Whipcord fabric is a strong worsted or cotton fabric made of hard-twisted yarns with a diagonal cord or rib. The weave used for whipcord is a steep-angled twill, essenti ...
,
gabardine Gabardine Gabardine is a durable twill worsted wool. It is a tightly woven waterproof fabric and is used to make outerwear and various other garments, such as suit (clothing), suits, overcoats, trousers, uniforms, and windbreakers. Thomas Bur ...
and
serge Serge may refer to: *Serge (fabric), a type of twill fabric *Serge (llama) (born 2005), a llama in the Cirque Franco-Italien and internet meme *Serge (name), a masculine given name (includes a list of people with this name) *Serge (post), a hitchi ...
are often made from worsted yarn. Worsted fabric made from wool has a natural recovery, meaning that it is resilient and quickly returns to its natural shape, but non-glossy worsted will shine with use or abrasion.


Worsted and woollens

Though both made of wool, worsted and woollens undergo different manufacturing steps resulting in significantly different cloths. In worsteds, which undergo more spinning steps, the natural crimp of the wool fiber is removed in the process of spinning the yarn while it is retained in woolens, and woollens are produced with short-staple yarns while worsted cloths need longer staple length. When woven, the yarns in worsted cloth lie parallel. Woollen materials are soft and bulky with fuzzy surfaces, while worsted is smoother. There are different terms in use for describing the
softness In materials science, hardness (antonym: softness) is a measure of the resistance to plastic deformation, such as an indentation (over an area) or a scratch (linear), induced mechanically either by Pressing (metalworking), pressing or abrasion ...
of textile materials. The wool trade term for it is ''handle'', with ''good handling'' cloth being soft to the touch, while ''poor handling'' suggests the material's harsh hand feel.


Technique and preparation

The essential feature of worsted yarn is straight,
parallel Parallel may refer to: Mathematics * Parallel (geometry), two lines in the Euclidean plane which never intersect * Parallel (operator), mathematical operation named after the composition of electrical resistance in parallel circuits Science a ...
fibre Fiber (spelled fibre in British English; from ) is a natural or artificial substance that is significantly longer than it is wide. Fibers are often used in the manufacture of other materials. The strongest engineering materials often incorp ...
s. Originally, long, fine staple wool was
spun ''Spun'' is a 2002 American black comedy crime drama film directed by Jonas Åkerlund from an original screenplay by William De Los Santos and Creighton Vero, based on three days of De Los Santos's life in the Eugene, Oregon drug subculture. I ...
to create worsted yarn; today, other long
fibre Fiber (spelled fibre in British English; from ) is a natural or artificial substance that is significantly longer than it is wide. Fibers are often used in the manufacture of other materials. The strongest engineering materials often incorp ...
s are also used. Many spinners differentiate between worsted preparation and
worsted spinning Short draw is the spinning (textiles), spinning technique used to create worsted yarns. It is spun from combing, combed roving, Sliver (textiles), sliver or wool top – anything with the fibers all lined up parallel to the yarn. It is generally ...
. Worsted preparation refers to the way the fibre is prepared before spinning, using ginning machines which force the fibre staples to lie parallel to each other. Once these fibres have been made into a top, they are then combed to remove the short fibres. The long fibres are combined in subsequent gilling machines to again make the fibres parallel. This produces overlapping untwisted strands called slivers. Worsted spinning refers to using a worsted technique, which produces a smooth yarn in which the fibres lie parallel.
Roving A roving is a long and narrow bundle of fiber. Rovings are produced during the process of making spun yarn from wool fleece, raw cotton, or other fibres. Their main use is as fibre prepared for spinning, but they may also be used for specialise ...
and
wool top Topmaking mills make ''wool top'', a semi-processed product from raw wool Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as ...
are often used to spin worsted yarn. Many hand spinners buy their fibre in roving or top form. Top and roving are ropelike in appearance, in that they can be thick and long. While some mills put a slight twist in the rovings they make, it is not enough twist to be a yarn. The fibres in top and rovings all lie parallel to one another along the length, which makes top ideal for spinning worsted yarns. ''Worsted-spun'' yarns, used to create worsted fabric, are spun from fibres that have been combed, to ensure that the fibres all run the same direction, butt-end (for wool, the end that was cut in
shearing Sheep shearing is the process by which the woollen fleece of a sheep is cut off. The person who removes the sheep's wool is called a '' shearer''. Typically each adult sheep is shorn once each year (depending upon dialect, a sheep may be sai ...
the sheep) to tip, and remain parallel. A short draw is used in spinning worsted fibres (as opposed to a long draw). In short draw
spinning Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spin (physics) or particle spin, a fundamental property of elementary particles * Spin quantum number, a number which defines the value of a particle's spin * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thr ...
, spun from combed
roving A roving is a long and narrow bundle of fiber. Rovings are produced during the process of making spun yarn from wool fleece, raw cotton, or other fibres. Their main use is as fibre prepared for spinning, but they may also be used for specialise ...
, sliver or
wool top Topmaking mills make ''wool top'', a semi-processed product from raw wool Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as ...
, the spinners keep their hands very close to each other. The fibres are held fanned out in one hand while the other hand pulls a small number from the mass. The twist is kept between the second hand and the wheel—there is never any twist between the two hands.


Weight

According to the Craft Yarn Council, the term "Worsted Weight", also "Afghan", "Aran", or simply "Medium", refers to a particular weight of yarn that produces a
gauge Gauge ( ) may refer to: Measurement * Gauge (instrument), any of a variety of measuring instruments * Gauge (firearms) * Wire gauge, a measure of the size of a wire ** American wire gauge, a common measure of nonferrous wire diameter, especia ...
of 16–20 stitches per 4 inches of stockinette, and is best knitted with 4.5mm to 5.5mm needles (US size 7–9). The term worsted, in relation to textile yarn weight, is defined as the number of hanks of yarn, each with a length of 560 yards, that weigh one pound. Super numbers represent the fineness of the worsted wool fiber used in the fabric. The higher the number, such as Super 100s, 120s, or 150s, the finer the wool thread is. The actual number is calculated by the maximum number of hanks of wool that can be spun into one pound of wool. For example, if you can spin 100 hanks each 560 yards long, the resulting wool is classified as Super 100s. Generally, the higher the super number, the lighter the weight of the fabric.


Automation

Before the introduction of automatic machinery, there was little difficulty in attaining a straight fibre, as long wool was always used, and the sliver was made up by hand, using combs. The introduction of
Richard Arkwright Sir Richard Arkwright (23 December 1732 – 3 August 1792) was an English inventor and a leading entrepreneur during the early Industrial Revolution. He is credited as the driving force behind the development of the spinning frame, known as ...
's
water frame The water frame is a spinning frame that is powered by a water-wheel. History Richard Arkwright, who patented the technology in 1769, designed a model for the production of cotton thread, which was first used in 1765. The Arkwright water f ...
in 1771, and the later introduction of cap and mule spinning machines, required perfectly prepared slivers. Many
manufactories A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. The ...
used one or more preparatory combing machines (called ''gill-boxes'') before further processing, to ensure straight fibres and to distribute the
lubricant A lubricant (sometimes shortened to lube) is a substance that helps to reduce friction between surfaces in mutual contact, which ultimately reduces the heat generated when the surfaces move. It may also have the function of transmitting forces, ...
evenly.


References


Further reading

* * *


External links

*
Standard Yarn Weight System
- Lists recommended needle sizes, gauge, etc., for the various yarn weight categories.



{{Authority control Spinning Woven fabrics Wool Norfolk Yarn Textile treatments