What Must Happen To The Fibers Before They Are Used To Make Synthetic Fibres

Jessica Holland - Textiles - Fibres

What must happen to the fibres before they are used to make Fabrics? Fibres are thin and small and cannot be made into afabric directly. So they are first converted into yarns which are longer, thicker and stronger. We then use these yarns to make fabrics. The process of making yarns from fibres is called spinning. Here the fibres are not only twisted but also pulled out or drawn. The spinning process helps to hold the fibres together and makes the yarns strong, smooth and fine.
Then the yarns are now strong enough to make fabric. The whole process of interlacing two sets of yarns at right angles to make a fabric is calledweaving. Weaving is done on looms, weaving is done by fitting one set of yarns on the loom which forms the length, the other set of yarns interlaced at right angles and called wefts. The yarns can be interlaced in many different ways to make different kinds of fabrics like matt, satin, velvet, towels,etc. Describe the origin of synthetic fibres
Synthetic fibres are made entirely from chemicals. Synthetic fibres are usually stronger than either natural
or regenerated fibres.
Polyester -Whinfield and Dickson along with inventors W.K. Birtwhistle and C.G. Ritchiethey also created the first polyester fibre called Terylene in 1941.
Spandex -It is a man-made fibre (segmented polyurethane) able to stretch at least 100% and snap back like natural rubber. It replaced the rubber used in women's underwear. Spandex was created in the late 1950s, developed by E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, Inc. The first commercial production of spandex fibre in the United States began in 1959.

Describe the origin of regenerated fibres?

Regenerated fibres are made from natural materials by processing these materials to form a fibre structure. Also called cellulosics, regenerated fibres are derived from the cellulose in cotton and wood pulp. Rayon and acetate are two common regenerated fibres.
Rayon was the first manufactured fibre developed, it made from wood or cotton pulp and was first known as artificial silk. The Swiss chemist, Georges Audemars invented the first crude artificial silk around 1855. In 1894, British inventors, Charles Cross, Edward Bevan, and Clayton Beadle, patented a safe a practical method of making artificial silk that came to be known as viscose rayon.

What are yarns?

Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery and rope making. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine.

Jessica Holland

Natural Fibres

Cotton
Cotton is from the cotton plant (gossypium).
The cotton fibre grows around the seed pod of the plant, and the colour of the soft fibre varies from white to a greyish yellow. Once the plant has been harvested, it is spun into thread or yarn. It is mostly used to make cotton fabric used for clothes, socks and underwear, etc. It is a light and breathable fabric, making it ideal for bed linen also.. It is cool to wear, has a soft handle, a good drape, and is durable. It can be washed and ironed, but it creases easily, is very absorbent and dries slowly.
Linen
Linen is used for summer clothing, tea towels and tablecloths. It is fresh and cool to wear, has a stiffer handle, and a good drape. It is durable, but can be washed and ironed. It creases badly and is very absorbent, but is also fast
drying.
The long fibres used to make linen yarn come from the stalk of the flax plant. Growing flax plants takes about 100 days from seed to harvest. The plant produces blue or white flowers on slender stalks that grow 2 feet to 4 feet high. Flax plants with blue flowers produce the finest fibre. As soon as the stalk turns yellow and the leaves wither, the harvest begins. The bundled plants go to a manufacturing facility, where they undergo "rippling," a process in which machines with coarse combs remove seeds and leaves, then the fibres are removed from the stalks. The stalks are soaked in water, acids or other chemicals to dissolve the woody bark that surrounds the fibres. This step, called retting, must be done properly or the quality of the linen yarn will be affected. The retted flax plants are squeezed and dried, then passed through the rollers of a breaking machine, which crushes the stalks and snaps them into small pieces called shives. Another machine then combs and straightens the fibres and separates long fibres from short fibres, the final step before spinning.
Wool
Wool is used for jumpers, suits and blankets. It is warm to wear, absorbent, dries slowly, is breathable, repels rain and can be soft or coarse to handle. It has a good drape, and is not durable; however, creases tend to drop out. If it is not dry-cleaned it may shrink.
Wool grows on sheep. Then it's cut off (sheared) and allowed to dry. This does not hurt the sheep, who are usually pleased to be rid of the huge and very heavy winter fleece. Then it's combed and carded and spun - as on a spinning wheel, though more usually now, of course, in a large factory.
Then it's woven or knitted into garments or other items useful to humans.

Silk
Silk is used for evening wear and ties. It is warm to wear, absorbent, has a soft handle and a good lustre and drape. It is durable and creases drop out. It needs to be dry cleaned.
Silk is a natural fibre that starts with the threads that a silkworm uses to enclose himself in a cocoon where he will go through metamorphosis to emerge as a moth.
Silkworms cover the threads with a glue-like substance called sericin to make their cocoons waterproof and hardened. So, before the silk farmers can harvest the silk, they have to remove the sericin. They do this by soaking the cocoons in hot water until the sericin dissolves. The tiny silk threads get pulled through a channel and wound up on a reel. Later the thread has to be taken off of the reel and twisted into stronger bunches, called skeins, before being sent to the silk mill to be woven into cloth.