What is Roving Yarn?

[MeerKat]

I was just looking at some yarn online and a couple of time I saw Roving Yarn. Can someone tell me what it means.

[crochet4fun]

I saw a video today that had it as a bulky weight yarn

[buggainok]

Here ya go:

Definition:
In the spinning world, roving refers to a sheet of fiber that's produced by a carding machine. The term is most commonly heard in the phrase "wool roving," but roving can be made out of any kind of fiber, or a mix of fiber and other elements the spinner desires in his or her finished yarn.

In the world of finished yarn, roving is also sometimes used to refer to super bulky weight yarn on the Craft Yarn Council of America's scale of yarn weights (that's a number 6 on a scale of 1 to 6).

Sometimes you will also hear the term roving used to mean a yarn that's lightly spun, thick and thin singles yarn. This yarn is basically just a drawn-out version of what the spinners call roving, and is sometimes also called "pencil roving" because when this type of roving is made, it's often about the thickness of a pencil.

Pencil roving can be further spun into yarn or it can be knit as it is.

[MeerKat]

Thanks for the explination, I think you have to know a lot more about yarn than I do, and if it mostly refers to Wool, it doesn't matter, I never use wool.
Thanks a lot for the help.

[buggainok]

MeerKat, it does say: "roving can be made out of any kind of fiber, or a mix of fiber and other elements the spinner desires in his or her finished yarn."

It seems to me that I see it most often in the kind of yarn that is very expensive and hand spun though.

Myself, I never use wool either, just acrylic or occasionally cotton. But my favorite by far is acrylic because it's usually inexpensive and easy to care for.

[kayscrochetpatterns]

Many roving yarns are acrylic. They can be a lot of fun to crochet with. They are more like a natural state and not "wrapped" like yarn. But many have to be hand washed.