All you need to know about yarns!

We see so many different kind of clothes and dresses around us. Different styles, different designs, different patterns, all come together to show the abundant diversity in clothing and fashion. In this blog post, we will share our insights about yarns, the basic building blocks of all the garments.

The yarns are made either by spinning or any other special procedure, depending on the material we want to use to make the fabric. The different materials used to make yarns range from natural products like cotton or wool to man-made polymers like polyester and rayon. The most commonly used material to make yarns is cotton. The procedure of making yarn from cotton starts at a spinning mill, where bales of cotton are blown and spun to make fine threads called yarn.

The quality of cotton fiber used greatly impacts the quality of yarn. Following are two main specifications used to differentiate between different yarns in hosiery industry –

Count (Ne) – This is the unit for measuring the thickness of yarn. Technically, count is defined as the length (in hanks) of the yarn that weigh 1 pound (lbs). For our purposes of understanding, it’s sufficient to know that higher the value of cotton yarn, finer is the thickness. The commonly used counts of yarn in Indian hosiery industry are 34s and 40s.

Colour Label – The colour label of the yarn is used to differentiate the process by which yarn is made from cotton fibers. The various colour labels and the respective process are as following –

1. Green Label (GL) – These yarns are semi combed and are much inferior than other yarns.

2. Violet Label (VL) – These yarns are combed and are higher in quality compared to GL but inferior than RL yarns.

3. Red Label (RL) – These are super combed yarns and are of the best quality.

Majority of our products are 100% cotton and are made with Red Label quality of yarns. In order to assess the quality of the yarn, there are various indicators. There are two major indicators used for quality assurance in Indian hosiery industry, as following –

Twist per inch (TPI) – Length of cotton fiber is generally a good indicator of its quality. Strands of cotton fiber are twisted to make yarn. The longer the strand, the lesser twists are required to achieve a yarn for given specification. In general, lower the TPI, better is the quality of the yarn.

Count Strength Product (CSP) – This indicator is used to assess the strength of a yarn. Technically, this is the product of count of the yarn and its tensile strength measured using a machine. The higher CSP indicates higher strength of the yarn.

It’s very essential for anyone working in garments industry to have a fundamental understanding of yarns. Knowing about these specifications and indicators for the yarn used in making your garments, can help you have a better understanding of its quality. In our next blog post, we will be telling about various knitting techniques we employ at Orient Textile Mills to make fabrics for our products. Stay tuned!