Читать книгу Jeany in Jeans - Karin Schrey - Страница 8

HOW COTTON IS TURNED INTO YARN:

JEANY AT THE SPINNING JENNY.

The major dirt is removed during ginning. But before the cotton can be spun, it must be thoroughly cleaned. In the old days, this was done by beating it with sticks. Today, though, this work is done by machines.

The next step is carding. Here the cotton is placed between two wooden boards that look like wire brushes with barbs and scratched by sliding the boards back and forth. The result is that all the cotton fibres are neatly arranged in one direction. It is now an ultrafine fleece. The more barbs the card has, the finer the fleece becomes.

Then the resulting cotton rope is stretched, and the fibres are pulled apart and twisted. The cotton can now be spun into yarn.

Spinning used to be done using a hand-held spindle and a spinning wheel. These are mentioned in numerous old fairy tales. Jeany knows some of them. You too?

Today there aren’t many people any more who can spin. Now it’s fully automated. But that was a long time in coming.

The first spinning machine was the spinning jenny. It was still operated by hand. Since it had eight spindles instead of one, like the spinning wheel, it marks the beginning of industrial processing of cotton. The triumph of cotton began with the invention of the spinning machines.

The spun yarn is taken from the spool using a hank winder and shaped into hanks. It is sold in this form and can be further processed using various techniques. It can be used to knit, crochet or embroider nice things. Fabrics can be woven from it: jeans, for example.