Page 22 - Curriculum Visions Dynamic Book

When the fibres have been pulled into line and twisted, they make a bundle of fibres called a yarn. The word “yarn” applies to any spun fibre, wool, cotton, and so on, for example, knitting yarn. Some yarns have special names, for example, thread, twine, and rope.
(Left) Each of the separate strands that you can see in the skein of grey wool is a yarn.
Spinning is a mechanical
process. It uses the natural tendency
that hairs have to cling together to
turn short fibres into longer fibres
that can be made into fabrics. But
because that is all that has happened, the fibres can be pulled apart. That is how spun material breaks. The fibres do not usually break so much as pull apart.
Spun material is useful for ropes, but it becomes far more useful when it is made into a form of net. That turns a yarn into a fabric. The process of making a net of this kind is called weaving.
Weaving and related types of net-making such as knitting take two sets of yarns and pass them under and over one another so that they are held in place. This process also makes the tearing of the spun yarn less likely because it helps spread out forces across the whole fabric.
For most of their long history fibres have been spun (made into a long yarn) and woven (made into
a fabric) by hand. It was a time-consuming business. The Industrial Revolution changed this by mechanizing many of the straightforward textile processes.
(Left and below) This is a simple form of spinning by hand. The weighted spindle is given a twist, and it pulls the fibres together and winds them in one step.
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