Research on Knitted Fabric Properties of Yak Cashmere and Cotton Blend Yarns

As a natural fibre, yak cashmere has attracted more and more attentions in textile processing due to its excellent properties, environmentally friendly characteristics and inexpensive prices. However, the direct processing of yak cashmere, especially pure yarn spinning, is difficult since the dispersion of the fibre length is large. Therefore, in this paper, yak cashmere and cotton blend yarns were spun. Compact Sirospun yarns with three different kinds of blending ratios; 70/30, 50/50 and 30/70, were spun, and corresponding spun yarn qualities: hairiness, breaking strength and evenness were tested. It is shown that with an increasing content of cotton, for the same yarn count spun, all properties tested were improved. Then the properties of corresponding knitted fabric, including the permeability, thickness, static voltage, warmth retention, whiteness, water permeability, bursting strength, elastic recovery, tensile properties, drape, wear resistance, pilling, anti-ultraviolet resistance and bending stiffness were measured and comparatively analysed. It is shown that with an increasing content of Yak cashmere, the fabric is lighter and thinner, and the air permeability, warmth retention, wear resistance and pilling were all improved, while the strength and elongation properties as well as water permeability were worsened. Meanwhile the average weight distribution of yak cashmere and cotton in the yarn is beneficial for the fabric elastic recovery property and drape.