Fancy yarns are those produced with some deliberate discontinuity introduced either into the colour or form of the article with the intention of producing an enhanced aesthetic impression. Most fancy yarns are produced by specialist spinners using machines modified or specially developed for the purpose; others are produced from 'fancy slivers' used as minor components of yarns made by spinners with normal equipment; still others are made exclusively by filament yarns, using adaptations of the airjet texturising process.
The text is well illustrated with diagrams, drawings and photographs of yarn structures and the equipment used to create them. It contains close-ups of the yarns themselves together with an analysis to show how appearance and texture can be varied by changing the feedstock or machine settings.
Textile historians and conservationists will find the book especially useful in helping to identify yarn types in historical fabrics and in developing an understanding of the variety of yarns available in antiquity and typical uses for them.
Fancy yarns is an essential reference to a wide range of industrial textile technologists including spinners, knitters and weavers, fabric and garment manufacturers, students of textile technology and design and curators and conservationists of historical textile collections.

• The first book to be devoted exclusively to fancy yarns and fancy doubled yarns
• Describes all the major yarn types, their manufacture and potential for use in garments and furnishing fabrics
• Includes over 100 drawings, diagrams and photographs

Hugh Gong graduated from Dong Hua University in Shanghai in 1984 with a degree in mechanical engineering, and gained his doctorate in textile technology from the University of Manchester in 1989. Between 1990 and 1993 he managed the Coats Viyella Marks & Spencer Centre of Excellence on Fabric Properties at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), and was responsible for initiating and managing industrial projects for fabric and clothing manufacturers in the UK. From 1992 until the present time he has been lecturing and researching in yarns and nonwovens technologies in the Department of Textiles at UMIST.Rachel Wright graduated in 1990 from the University of Hull with a degree in French and linguistics. From 1992 she ran her own design company producing embroidery kits and in 1998 she was awarded an MSc in textile design technology and design management from UMIST. Her dissertation was largely concerned with fancy doubled yarns.

Historical development; The size of the market for fancy yarns; Manufacturing attitudes and the applications of fancy yarns; Introduction to fancy yarn structures and analysis of fancy yarns; Structures and formation of fancy yarns; Manufacturing techniques; The design and application of fancy yarns; The marketing of fancy yarns.