Fibre Blends

Fibre blends are extremely important. There is no such thing as a perfect fibre. All fibres have good, fair and poor characteristics relating to a particular end-use. Blending allows manufacturers to combine fibres so that good qualities are emphasised and poor qualities minimised. Blending may be carried out at any stage prior to the spinning operation. The earlier the fibres are blended in processing, the better the blend.

Blending may be carried out for a number of reasons;

• To give colour effects
• To obtain better texture, handle or fabric appearance
• To control cost
• To improve performance.

Special categories of blended yarn have been developed to exploit particular fibre characteristics. Some yarns have two types of continuous filament intermingled within one continuous filament yarn. Others have two types of polymer within the same filament. Composite yarns have two or more elements one of which is a continuous filament; core spun elastane has a central core of elastane covered with a wrapping yarn or yarns. Polyester continuous filament flat yarn may be covered with cotton as an alternative to the more traditional poly/cotton blend.