Spinning is the process of making threads by twisting together plant or animal fibers. It is one of the most ancient arts. For thousands of years, yarn was spun by means of a spindle. This consisted of little more than a smooth stick from 9 to 15 inches (23 to 38 centimeters) long. It had a notch at one end for catching the thread, and a stone or baked clay bowl, called a whorl, to help make the spindle spin, like a top. The spinner turned the spindle by rolling it against the thigh. Ancient Egyptians used such spindles to make thread for fine cloth.
Ancient spinners in India and South America used finer spindles, usually in a bowl or on the ground. They spun cotton from combed rolls. Wool or flax fibers were wound around a stick called the distaff.
Early spinning wheels
included the great wheel and the Saxony wheel. The great wheel, developed in India around 500 B.C., was the first spinning device to have a mechanized spindle. A drive band connected to a large wheel turned the spindle. The great wheel was used in Europe by the Middle Ages. The Saxony wheel, which was developed in Germany in the late 1400’s and early 1500’s, featured a foot pedal that turned the spindle. A distaff carried the material to be spun. The material was drawn off the distaff by hand. The fineness of the thread produced by these early spinning wheels depended on the speed with which the twisting thread was drawn out. Very fine thread required two spinnings. New England housewives used both the great wheel and the Saxony wheel during colonial times.
The spinning jenny
was invented by James Hargreaves in about 1764. This machine could spin more than one thread at a time. But it produced coarse thread rather than fine thread. No one really knows the origin of the term jenny. See Spinning jenny .
The water frame
was a cotton-spinning machine patented by Richard Arkwright in 1769. This machine made it much easier to spin cotton thread for the warp, the lengthwise threads in a piece of cloth. Arkwright’s frame drew cotton from the carding machine in a fine, hard-twisted thread suitable for the warp.
The mule,
which was introduced by Samuel Crompton in 1779, combined principles of the spinning wheel and the water frame. It was widely used to produce muslin and so was called the muslin wheel. Some mules had more than 1,000 spindles. Mules produced fine, uniform yarn.
New spinning machines helped bring about that change in history known as the Industrial Revolution, when machines began to take the place of hand workers. The increased output of spinning factories created a demand for more cotton. This need led to the invention of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin. With more thread to weave, the weavers developed better and faster power looms. Then came machines to knit, to make lace, or embroider, to cut out patterns, and finally to sew cloth into finished garments in large quantities.
Cotton spinning in a present-day factory is a typical example of most spinning. After the raw cotton has been cleaned and blended, it usually goes through an air duct system to the carding machines. These machines have huge rollers covered with wire teeth. Here the tangled fibers are straightened out and made to lie in straight, even rows. Then the fibers are rolled over and over one another to form slivers << SLY vuhrs >> , which look like loose ropes of soft cotton yarn. A sliver goes through the processes of drawing, slubbing, and roving, by which it is made finer, more even, and stronger. Spinning machines perform these operations and give the thread the required firmness and strength.
New machines have been invented to spin the old natural fibers, such as flax and hemp, and new machines are being made for other fibers, such as kapok and ramie. Machines may someday be developed that will make cloth directly without first spinning thread.
