ABSTRACT
Two muslin sheeting fabrics were woven, one with a polyester staple-core/cotton-wrap yarn produced by the USDA-patented core-spinning technology, and the other with a conventional drawframe-blend yarn of the same fiber composition. The two fabrics were washed, desized, scoured, union dyed, and DP finished in the same manner. The finished fabrics were tested for tensile and tear strengths, dimensional stability, crimp, air permeability, pilling resistance, and durable-press rating. The test results showed that the polyester staple-core/cotton-wrap-yarn fabric was superior to the conventional fabric in almost every property tested. However, the core-yarn fabric also revealed a significant quality problem. Its physical appearance was unsatisfactory due to the presence of a few bands of color-shade variation caused by a yarn size variation in spinning. Ongoing research continues to refine the process and improve the quality of the resulting yarns and fabrics.
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