Woolen

Woolen (American English) or woollen (Commonwealth English) is a type of yarn made from carded wool. Woolen yarn is soft, light, stretchy, and full of air. It is thus a good insulator, and makes a good knitting yarn. Woolen yarn is in contrast to worsted yarn, in which the fibers are combed to lie parallel rather than carded, producing a hard, strong yarn.

The woolen and worsted process both require that the wool (and other similar animal fibers, cashmere, camel, etc.) be cleaned before mechanical processing. Woolen and worsted nomenclatures apply only to the textile processing of animal fibers, but it has become common to include fiber blends under these terms.

The resultant fabrics will be classified as being either woolen or worsted, but this designation is assigned during fiber processing and yarn formation, not in the cloth or finished garment.

A woven woolen fabric is one which is subjected to fabric finishing techniques designed to add a directional pile — in that the end consumer can 'stroke' the garment in a single direction (shoulder to cuff etc.), such as a casual jacket. This feels like the fibers are directionally arranged.

Woolen yarn formation is also very common for knitwear, where the resultant garment has some bulk and the requirement for visual aesthetics (of fiber alignment) is minimal.

The worsted processing route is more complex and requires the removal of short fibers and the use of a focused mechanical process to make the individual fibers parallel to each other. The yarn formation process is significantly more comprehensive and results in a very sleek yarn which will offer a clean looking woven fabric, such as for . The worsted process is significantly more expensive and is seldom used for knitwear.

Woolen yarn is handspun using the long draw technique, and the yarn is spun from a rolag. Most handspinners make a blend of a woolen and worsted yarn, using techniques from both categories, and thus ending up with a mix. The first step to spin a true woolen yarn, however, is to card the fiber into a rolag using handcarders.

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