Our Yarn

Our twisting machines work hard to help us with the creation of our yarns, and all the magic happens at the Huntingdon Yarn Mill. The two main factors that affect the appearance of a yarn are the roller speeds and the twist direction.

Roller Speeds

Rollers on the machine control how fast each strand of yarn is being fed into the twist (see picture at bottom of post). Our machines are some of the last in operation with TWO sets of rollers. The speed of each roller can be changed by manually changing the size of the gears, shown to the right.

If there are multiple feeds, the speed of each roller can be set at a different pace so that one twists faster than the other, creating bumps, nubs, seeds, and other effects. Straight yarns are created by keeping this roller speed the same for all strands. 

By adjusting even a small setting, the yarns can be changed in drastic ways to create different effects and textures. These photos show just a few possibilities of what can be done structure-wise with the same yarn!

Twist Direction

“S” and “Z” twist yarns are created based on the direction the yarn is twisted in, and these two twists can be combined to create an interesting result, like this one here:

The yarn on the left is has an s-twist. The yarn on the right was made by twisting the s-twist yarn with another yarn in the opposite direction (z-twist). The combination of both twists creates a much wavier texture.

During this process, there are so many possibilities to achieve unique yarn structures and textures with the help of the machines.