If you have ever gone shopping for wool fabrics you may have seen some of the fabric described as worsted, and some of it described as woolen. If you are me, you may have wondered what this meant. Aren’t all wool fabrics woolen? I mean, they are wool, right? Not quite! In brief, worsted and woolen are different types of wool (long staple vs short staple), prepared in different ways, resulting in a different look and feel. Under magnification, worsted yarns look smooth with long fibres, and woolen yarns are much hairier, with lots of short fibres and more pokey-out bits. Worsted wools are slick when woven, woolen wools are knitted, crocheted, or woven into softer, fluffier fabric, or fulled fabric. Worsted wools are better at keeping out the wind and rain, but woolen wools are warmer, because they are full of air which acts as insulation. Worsted is also used to describe a particular way of spinning yarn, or weight of yarn, but I’m not going to go into that because it’s a modern …