Prior to the Industrial Revolution textiles were spun by hand using a spinning wheel. Today most commercial yarns are produced in textile spinning mills. Although the tools and techniques vary from hand spinning, most of the processes are still the same. Industrial yarn spinning includes four basic processes in order to manufacture yarn from the raw materials. These materials will go through the following processes:
- Loosening and Cleaning
- Carding
- Drawing
- Spinning
Most yarns are spun from staple fibers made using one of three of systems- the Cotton Process, the Woolen Process, and the Worsted Process. These processes vary only slightly from each other and they all included the basic steps of Loosening and Cleaning, Carding, Drawing and Spinning.
Cotton Process
This process employs seven steps in the spinning process:
- Opening & Loosening
- Carding
- Combing
- Drawing
- Roving
- Spinning
- Winding
Opening & Loosening
Upon arrival at the mill the fiber bails are opened and loosened. This helps separate and clean the fibers before it is fed into carding machines.
Carding
Carding machines further loosen and separate the fibers by passing them between two rotating metal drums covered with wire needles. This aligns the fibers in a thin web of parallel fibers which is formed into a ropelike strand called a sliver. The sliver is collected in a sliver can in preparation for roving.
Combing
For high quality yarns the sliver is combed after carding to make the fibers more parallel and remove smaller fibers.
Drawing
Slivers are then drawn out, blending the fibers and making them more parallel. No twist is added to the sliver during drawing. Several slivers can be blended together during drawing. Slivers can go through multiple drawings for further parallelization and blending.
Roving
Drawn out slivers are then fed to the roving frame where they are drawn further while a slight twist is added. The roving strands are collected in cans and fed to the spinning machine.
Spinning
The spinning machine draws out the roving strand, adds twist, and winds the yarn onto bobbins.
Winding
Multiple bobbins of yarn are then wound onto larger spools called cheeses. Now the yarn is ready for texturing and dying, and finally weaving into fabric.
