In the last few articles, we have discussed woolen and worsted yarns, touched on preparation methods, and talked about different drafting methods. Now we’re going to put it all together.

A woolen spun yarn is lofty, airy, and warm, has a bit of a fuzzy nap, and is elastic.

A worsted spun yarn is smooth, strong, cool, compact, and inelastic.
In this context, the terms woolen and worsted refer to the methods used to both prepare and spin the fibers and have nothing to do with the type of fiber used to spin the yarn. While wool can certainly be spun woolen, so can silk noil, or any other short stapled fiber.

It is the preparation and spinning method that determine the type of yarn, not the fibers composing that yarn.

There is only one way to spin a true woolen yarn and that is to prepare short staple fibers by carding them into rolags and spinning them with the Traditional Long Draw.

There is also only one way to spin a true worsted yarn and that is to prepare long staple fibers by combing them so they are strictly parallel and spinning them with one of the short draw methods.

Everything else falls into the very broad category between true woolen and true worsted. According to Alden Amos, that’s about 98% of all handspun yarn. The yarns in this category have some characteristics of both woolen spun yarns and worsted spun yarns. A good understanding of the requirements for spinning the true types of both woolens and worsteds allows you to pick and choose exactly the best preparation and spinning methods to spin the yarn you want for your projects.

Carded preparations include rolags, batts, and roving. All of the carded preparations contain both long and short fibers and the carding process does not organize the fibers in a strictly parallel manner. This means that yarn spun from carded fibers will always have some woolen characteristics. Rolags and Traditional Long Draw give true woolen but you can easily make rolags from batts or roving. For batts, lay the batt out flat, place a ruler or other straight edge on it width wise and separate the batt along the straight edge. Roll it up just as you would a rolag. For roving, tear off a piece and stretch it out width wise and again, roll it up as a rolag. All of these methods will make nice woolen yarns if spun using Traditional Long Draw. If spun short draw, then worsted characteristics will be introduced into the yarn.

True worsted is not possible from a carded preparation but you can spin a yarn with worsted characteristics from carded preparations. For traditional rolags, that have been rolled top to bottom, unroll then and re-roll them from side to side. Even easier, roll them side to side right off the hand cards, making a worlag. For batts simply tear lengthwise strips and spin. Roving is already prepared for spinning worsted type yarn.
Spinning these preparations Traditional Long Draw will maintain more woolen characteristics. Spinning with one of the short draws or POC long draws will add more worsted characteristics.


Combed preparations, such as top may be spun woolen style if the top is stretched out horizontally and sections are removed using a straight edge. Roll the pieces just as you would a traditional rolag and spin Traditional Long Draw. The resulting yarn will not be a true woolen because the fibers will be all one length instead of different lengths but it will be as close to woolen as it’s possible to get with a combed preparation. Using Traditional Long Draw with combed fibers will add woolen characteristics to combed preparations.

Many thanks to Charles Gee for coining the word “worlag”. It’s a fitting term for a carded batt rolled for worsted style spinning.