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These cookies do not store any personal information. Non-necessary Non-necessary. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. Photo by Joe Coca. Worsted yarn is spun by pinching the drafted fibers and leading the twist into them, using fibers prepared in a parallel arrangement.
Worsted yarn is smooth, lustrous, hardwearing, and has good stitch definition for patterned knitting. Semi-worsted yarn is spun worsted-style, using fibers prepared in a random arrangement. Patterned knitting will not be as distinct as with worsted yarn. Woolen yarn is spun allowing the twist to enter the drafted fibers, using fibers prepared in a random arrangement. Woolen yarn is fluffy, soft, and light. Knitted garments will be warm from the air trapped in the yarn, but patterns do not show up as clearly.
The fiber is compressed and smoothed, and air is squeezed out as the twist is applied to the fiber. That is worsted drafting. It makes yarn that is smooth and dense. The other style invites the twist into the fiber, it lets the twist zip into the fiber with little to no control; twist is just tossed at the fiber.
That is woolen drafting. It makes yarn that is lofty and irregular. Think in terms of shopping at a fiber show. Miss Babs has an orderly line. Folks wait their turn to enter the booth and shop in a controlled way. That would be worsted-style shopping.
Over at Into the Whirled, the people come from all directions into the booth in a hullabaloo of shopping, woolen style. When you touch worsted yarn, it tends to feel heavier and very even, and it will be shiny if the fibers in the yarn are inclined that way. Woolen yarns feel lighter, can feel textured and have a halo, and if the fibers like to be hairy or fuzzy, they will be flying their fuzzy freak flag.
Woolen yarns are the ones you might find bits of hay in. When you look at yarns, hunting for worsted vs. Even taking in account the difference of color and fiber blend, they are two different yarns. Shelter is textured, and Arbor is smooth as silk. Some yarns are not so obvious. The difference between these two is not as clear at first glance. Looking at a strand, I can start seeing variation.
The Empire on the right is less consistent, and looks a little puffier. When I unplied the yarn and looked at individual strands, I could see a difference and a dead giveaway. The Windham is more uniform and sleek looking even with the inherent visual softness of the Merino fiber. The Empire is more uneven looking, a little airier as well as fuzzy.
The dead giveaway of the woolen-ness of Empire is the blip of fiber sticking out. Not every woolen-spun yarn has a rougher surface, and not every worsted yarn is smooth. How a yarn looks also depends on did you read my last article? Some have a naturally rougher surface. An extreme example is angora or mohair. If either of these fibers is in your yarn, no matter how worsted and smooth it is spun—it will become a fuzzy yarn.
I knit swatches of all four yarns in stockinette, moss stitch, and a simple lace stitch, and took close-up comparison photos of the worsted and woolen yarns overlapping. In all the photos, the left swatch of the pair is the worsted spun yarn and the right swatch is woolen spun.
Stitch definition. If you want knife-edge stitch definition, go for a worsted drafted yarn. You can see the stitches in the worsted swatches just show up. The Vs of stockinette are sharp, the bumps of moss are plump and clear and the holes in the lace are wide open. Woolen drafted yarn gives a texture and an overall softness and visual motion to all the stitches, something I like, but occasionally I find some small stitch repeat patterns get lost with woolen yarns.
If you are unsure or curious about the outcome of a particular stitch pattern, swatch it. Color is usually lighter in a woolen drafted yarn.
The squeeze of drafting a yarn worsted brings fibers closer, for greater depth of color, and the smoothness of the surface reflects light, intensifying the color and shine. In colorwork, the edge that gives a worsted yarn great stitch definition also makes colors stand apart, while woolen drafted yarns create softness and blur between colors. Durability, warmth and weight. In side-by-side comparison of worsted and woolen yarns with the same fiber and yarn structure, the worsted yarn is more durable, less warm, and heavier than a woolen yarn.
The packing-in of the fiber as worsted yarn is made allows the fibers to protect each other for longer wear and less pilling. The same process squeezes out the air making it not as warm. The compression of a worsted draft puts more individual fibers into a length of yarn, making it heavier. The result of this woolen-style preparation and spinning is a yarn that retains the lofty, air-trapping qualities it had before spinning. This means it offers remarkable warmth and lightness and is adaptable in gauge, able to compress to a denser fabric on small needles or bloom to cohere as a gauzy fabric when worked on large needles.
As with our woolen-spun yarns, fiber prepared for worsted-spun yarn is first scoured and then carded. This carded wool from the initial fiber preparation is prepared further in a worsted-style through combing.
Combing the jumbled fibers aligns them in a parallel fashion and also removes shorter fibers for uniform length. The combed wool is then sent through a pin drafter several times, resulting in the wool sliver becoming progressively thinner with each pass through the machine. The rub roller next turns the sliver into roving and adds a false twist. Worsted-style spinning, unlike woolen-style, does not allow twist to enter the fiber during drafting. As such, for our worsted-spun yarns, once the roving is loaded on the spinning frame, they first pass through a draft zone , which drafts the fiber to open it up and reduce it to the intended weight and thickness required for the yarn.
Twist is then inserted only as the fibers exit the draft zone, not concurrently as in our woolen-spun yarns. The twisted singles are then plied together on the twisting frame — Arbor is comprised of three plies, while Vale is comprised of two.
Note: Notice how the individual plies of Arbor and Vale shown above, top to bottom appear more compacted and how the fibers in each single are oriented in the same direction. The result of this worsted-style preparation and spinning is a yarn that is smooth and dense, due to the fibers being neatly combed in a parallel fashion. The smoothness of the yarn means that the stitches knit from them sing proudly and have excellent definition, while the compactness of the yarn contributes to fabrics with greater drape.
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