Spinning
Once the cashmere has been dyed, blended and carded, it is ready to be spun into yarn. The spinning department is the noisiest as the machines are big and constantly on-the-go; they regularly run into the night.
Meet the spinning mules
Each spinning mule can take 14 of the large spools with the carded cashmere slubbing on it. The ends of the slubbing are connected manually to empty pirns (or cones), which you can see here.
Each spool has 28 ends.
Customised thickness
When the carriage of pirns moves out it puts a twist in the yarn and then winds the yarn onto the pirn. The distance that the carriage moves and the amount of length (or feed) of each end are very specific. It can be adjusted to vary the thickness of the yarn.
When the pirns are full of spun yarn they are called cops, and are ready to either go into stock or move to another part of the spinning department where they are spun two fold to make 2/28s yarn. Our entire collection is made from 2/28s yarn as this is the best thickness for us and for the machines we use to knit with.
