Hosiery Yarns (Cotton)

(See knitting). All yarns used for knitting are termed hosiery yarns in Leicester, but in America only yarns actually used for knitted footwear come under this term. These yarns are much softer than required for weaving. Miscellaneous Yarns - Goat wools, such as llama and alpaca are employed in spinning. yarns for the knitting trade. Vicuna and camel yarns are used to a limited extent. Ramie yarn is specially employed for knitting gas mantle fabrics. Soft spun flax yams have been used for making underwear fabric. Chenille and other manufactured threads are used to a small extent in warp knitting. Composite yarns, such as union yarns - spun from a mixture of wool and cotton fibres; cordon yarns - cotton and worsted singles, doubled together; wool and rayon or spun silk, cotton and rayon or spun silk are largely used to produce self or two-colour effects. Fancy yarns, such as slub yams, voiles, and curled and loop yarns are also employed. Hosiery Yarns (Cotton) include condenser, hosiery, condenser lisle thread, mercerised and sewing cottons. Condenser yarns are spun in coarse counts from low-grade cotton, Indian and American. They are carded, condensed and mule spun, and possess little twist. Hosiery cotton yarns vary considerably in counts and qualities, practically all varieties of Indian, American and Egyptian being used in varying proportions to obtain suitable mixture for quality and price. Cheaper yarns are carded and mule spun. American and Egyptian cotton yarns are combed mainly with the object of removing seed particles. High-class Egyptian and Sea Islands cotton yarns are super-combed. The chief features of a hosiery cotton yam should be: (1) Regularity; (2) cleanliness; (3) fullness. Regularity prevents the making of cloudy fabric, showing thick and thin places. Cleanliness is essential, as the seed particles clog the eyelet hole in the yam guides and cause breakages. Fullness is desirable to cover the loop interstices. Elasticity and pliability are quite as essential as tensile strength. Yams are usually soft spun and if two-fold soft doubled, average twists in two-fold being 2/10's 6¹/₂T., 2/20's 8¹/₂T., 2/30's 10T., 2/40's 16T., 2/80's 20T. Softer twist less 25 to 30 per cent of average (T= turns per inch). Lisle thread is a comparatively hard-twisted and doubly-gassed thread in which there are no projecting fibres. It is always of a two-fold character, and the doubling twist varies from 24 to 34 turns per inch in 2/60's. It is used largely in the manufacture of ladies' hose tops and feet and for lace hosiery. Mercerised yams are used largely in the fancy trade, a comparatively soft twist again being employed. Sewing cottons for seaming, linking and making-up are specially prepared in two to six cord open and reverse twist. Woollen and Worsted Yarns include lamb's wool, wheeling, skein yarns, gala yams (woollens), worsted, crossbreds, fingering, cashmere, dry spun botany (see under each name). Worsted and crossbred yarns of various qualities are used. These yams are spun softly with " hosiery twist." The drawing may be open, cone or French, and the spinning may take place on cap, ring or flyer frames. The chief essentials of hosiery yarn are softness of fibre, fullness, minimum of twist consistent with the requisite tensile strength, regularity, pliability and elasticity. Cashmere Yarns, as used in the knitted goods industry, are spun from short, loose and weak wools as well as from better qualities by French drawing and mule spinning. A small proportion of real cashmere is used for outer garments. In recent years nylon yarns have been largely employed.

The range of cotton knitting yarns is from 1's to 70's or their equivalent in doubled yarns. The usual grades are " Standard," " Soft Twisted," " Lisle Yarn," and " Hard Lisle." The table following may be taken as a quick guide to these yarns: - Also see Hosiery Yarns.

An Egyptian variety of cotton. It is largely used in its natural colour for hosiery yarns.

A variety of cotton grown in Peru of good staple and both hard and soft nature. Best adapted for mixing. The hard variety is known as " Rough Peruvian " and the soft as " Soft Peruvian." Both sorts have a staple about 1¹/₁₆-in. and the rough variety is largely used for mixing with wool, which it closely resembles. The smooth mixes well with American, up to 50's counts, and is much used for soft hosiery yarns.

A term applied to hosiery and knit goods generally that are made of cotton and wool mixed together, prior to spinning. It frequently happens that goods made of all-cotton yarns are offered as merino, or are made up in boxes with the word merino on the box label.

Super yarns used principally for hosiery and underwear. Spun from the finest of long staple combed cotton, hard twisted, gassed and mercerised to give a smooth surface. Originally made from flax at Lille (France) and used for open weave net fabrics. The cotton thread is harder twisted than usual in the doubling process in order to give a firm feel to the fabric, in addition to its better wearing quality and greater elasticity. Knit fabrics made from lisle thread have less tendency to " ladder " than other threads. The counts range from 2/50's to 2/100's or finer. It was known as Scotch thread.

This term is used literally and denotes the combing of fibrous materials in sliver form by mechanically actuated combs, or by hand-operated combs. In general, the objects in combing are two, namely (1) to obtain the maximum parallelisation of the fibres, and (2) to remove impurities and undesired short fibres. Combing machines differ considerably in their action on fibres, and in practice the different types of combs are used in somewhat restricted fields. For combing cotton the Nasmith and Heilmann combs are principally used. In the United States of America the Whitin comb is much used. In all three of these machines successive rows of combs are set in cylinders, the material being presented for combing in the form of thin narrow laps, which after combing are formed into a sliver and coiled in a can. For combing wool, four types of comb are in use, namely, the Noble, Lister, Holden and Heilmann. Also see under each name. The combs of the Noble machine are in the form of pins set vertically in one large and two small circles with appropriate mechanism for dabbing the wool into the pins of the combs and means for drawing off the combed wool in a continuous sliver, which is wound into a ball and constitutes the " top " of the worsted trade. The machine has a high production and is suitable for use on a large variety of wools, particularly those of 4-in. to 8-in. staple. The Lister comb is specially suitable for long wools. The combing mechanism includes a gill-box and comb circle. The Holden comb is suitable for wools of 3-in. to 6-in. staple, and of 50's to 70's quality. The Heilmann, also known as the " rectilinear " comb, is used for short wools, say, up to about 2-in. staple, and when used for wool is arranged differently for feed and delivery than for combing cotton. It is becoming of increasing importance for combing short fibred wools for subsequent spinning into fine, full handling hosiery yarns.

The twisting together of two or more threads to make a stronger or fancier thread. The operation consists in drawing threads from two or more cops or bobbins and twisting them together with the required number of turns per inch. This amount of twist varies considerably according to the purpose for which the yarn is required. Fewer turns are given to yarns for mercerising and hosiery, but yarns for sewing cotton or making healds require a great amount, 2/100's for instance, varies from 15 to 40 turns per inch. Many crepe yarns have 60 or more turns per inch. Doubled yarns possess greater strength and elasticity than a single yarn of the same weight (see Cop and Cop Doubled Yarns)

Fibre manufactured by shredding woollen yarns and rags. The yarns are the wastes, ends and tangled pieces from spinning mills. The rags include new pieces from the cutting tables of clothiers, tailors, etc., old and worn scraps of suits, coats, sweaters, hosiery, dress goods, etc. These materials are treated in machines that tear the fibres apart until the material is reduced to the loose wool state. It is then passed through the carding, drawing and spinning processes. Often it is mixed with new wool or with cotton. A very large trade is done in Yorkshire in converting rags into yarn. Cheap suitings and coatings are made from the yarns.