Fabrics Around Us

From the chapter, examples of everyday articles made from different fabrics include bedsheets, pillow covers, towel, school dress, and school bag.

Textile fibres are classified on the basis of their origin, chemical type, generic type, and trade name.

### 1. On the basis of origin
- Natural fibres: obtained from nature.
- Manufactured fibres: made by humans, also called man-made fibres.

### 2. On the basis of chemical type
- Cellulosic
- Protein
- Synthetic

### 3. On the basis of generic type
- Animal hair
- Animal secretion

### 4. On the basis of trade name
- e.g. polyester, terelene, dacron

Further, fibres may be:
- Staple fibres: short length, like cotton
- Filament fibres: long length, like silk and polyester

### Characteristics
- Natural fibres are available in nature and include cellulosic fibres like cotton, linen, jute, coir; protein fibres like wool and silk; mineral fibre asbestos; and natural rubber.
- Manufactured fibres are produced by processing raw materials into filaments. Rayon is a manufactured cellulosic fibre, while nylon, polyester, acrylic and spandex are synthetic fibres.
- Staple fibres are short and usually need spinning into yarn.
- Filament fibres are long continuous fibres and may be used as filaments or twisted into yarn.

A yarn is a continuous strand of textile fibres, filaments or material in a form suitable for knitting, weaving or otherwise intertwining to form a textile fabric.

### Methods of yarn processing
Yarn processing from natural staple fibres is called spinning. The main stages are:

1. Cleaning
- Natural fibres contain impurities like seeds, leafy matter, twigs and suint.
- These are removed and fibres are sorted and made into laps.

2. Making into a sliver
- Laps are unrolled and straightened by carding and combing.
- Carding disentangles fibres and lays them straight and parallel.
- Combing removes finer impurities and short fibres.
- The fibres are then converted into a sliver, a rope-like mass of loose fibres.

3. Attenuating, drawing out and twisting
- The sliver is drawn out to make it longer and finer; this is called attenuation.
- Several slivers may be combined for uniformity or blending.
- The sliver is taken to the roving machine, where it is further attenuated and given a slight twist.
- Finally, in spinning, the strand is stretched to the required fineness, given the desired twist, and wound on cones.

Manufactured fibres are first made as filaments. These may be twisted together as a multifilament yarn, or cut into staple length and then spun like natural fibres.