Spinning is a major industry. It is part of the textile manufacturing process where three types of fibre are converted into yarn, then fabric, then textiles. The textiles are then fabricated into clothes or other artifacts. There are three industrial processes available to spin yarn, and a handicraft community who use hand spinning techniques. Spinning is the twisting together of drawn out strands of fibres to form yarn, though it is colloquially used to describe the process of drawing out, inserting the twist, and winding onto bobbins.[1]
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Artificial fibres are made by extruding a polymer through a spinneret into a medium where it hardens. Wet spinning (rayon) uses a coagulating medium. In dry spinning (acetate and triacetate), the polymer is contained in a solvent that evaporates in the heated exit chamber. In melt spinning (nylons and polyesters) the extruded polymer is cooled in gas or air and sets.[2]. All these fibres will be of great length, often kilometers long.
Natural fibres are either from animals (sheep, goat, rabbit, silk-worm), mineral (asbestos), or from plants (cotton, flax, sisal). These vegetable fibres can come from the seed (cotton), the stem (known as bast fibres: flax, hemp, jute) or the leaf (sisal).[3] Without exception, many processes are needed before a clean even staple is obtained- each with a specific name. With the exception of silk, each of these fibres is short, being only centimetres in length, and each has a rough surface that enables it to bond with similar staples.[4]
Artificial fibres can be processed as long fibres or batched and cut so they can be processed like a natural fibre.
Most spinning is done using break or open-end spinning, this is a technique where the staples are blown by air into a rotating drum, where they attach themselves to the tail of formed yarn that is continually being drawn out of the chamber. Other methods of break spinning use needles and electrostatic forces.[5] This method has replaced the older methods of ring and mule spinning. It is also easily adapted for artificial fibres.
The pre-industrial techniques of hand spinning with spindle or spinning wheel continue to be practiced as a handicraft or hobby, and enable wool or unusual vegetable and animal staples to be creatively used.
Hand-spinning was a cottage industry in medieval Europe, where the wool spinners (often women and children) would provide enough yarn to service the needs of the men who operated the loom. This would occur in districts favourable to sheep husbandry. The introduction of the flying shuttle upset this balance. The subsequent invention of the spinning jenny water frame redressed the balance but required water power to operate the machinery, and the industry relocated to West Yorkshire where this was available. The nascent cotton industry located on wetter side of the same hills. The British government was very protective of this technology, restricting its export. By the aftermath of World War I the colonies where the cotton was grown started to purchases and manufacture significant quantities of cotton spinning machinery. The next breakthrough was with the move over to break or open-end spinning, and then the adoption of artificial fibres. By then most production had moved to India and China.
Trowbridge medieval spinning industry
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