How Is Cotton Made Into Clothing?
Cotton is a shrub native to the subtropical regions of the world. It grows a fluffy white fiber around the seed of the plant. The use of cotton cloth can be dated back to 3000 B.C. and today it is still one of our main sources of textile fiber. Cotton fabric is used to make clothing, industrial cloth and upholstery. China and the United states are the two leading countries in cotton production, followed by India, Pakistan, Brazil, Greece and Turkey.
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Ginning
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Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in the late 18th century and it revolutionized the cotton business. Ginning is the process by which cotton lint, after harvest, is separated from the seedpod. This process is done in the fields. A cotton gin today is actually a series of machines that perform their own tasks including feeding, drying, removing sticks and cleaning fiber. It also includes a bale presser, which forms the cleaned cotton material into bales that are shipped to a warehouse for further production.
Preparation
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Once the bales reach the warehouse or production facility, they have to be broken up again. This is done by another machine called a breaking and opening machine, which tears apart the bales until they become loose bundles of cotton fiber. The fiber is then fed through a series of machines that clean and fluff the cotton before pressing it into sheets of loose material. The cotton then goes through a sliver machine, which is a cylindrical container that spins the fibers into twisted rope-like strands. The strands of cotton are stretched and reformed through combing machines. This process leaves the maker with loose strands referred to as "roving."
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Spinning
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Now it's time to spin the thread. The roving is spun into yarn by a twisting and stretching process. Machines force the cotton thread through a series of wheels, each one moving faster than the one before it. As cotton is fed into the machine, it is twisted and stretched into strands of yarn. The roving is doubled upon itself and then stretched again, and this process is repeated until a uniform string of yarn is achieved. After yarn is made, it is dyed and prepared for the loom.
Weaving
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Weaving is said to be the most important part of the fabric-making process. A loom is used in order to take the cotton yarn and weave it into fabric. The cotton thread is fed from both the loom beam and a bobbin. The warp yarn from the loom beam is positioned so that every other strand is raised and the bobbin yarn is then weaved between them. The beam is moved again lowering the raised threads and raising the opposite thread. Then the bobbin yarn is again weaved back through. Once long sheets of fabric are made, they are stitched together into bolts.
Gassing
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Gassing refers to passing the yarn through a flame. Singeing is a similar technique done after the yarn as already been weaved into fabric. A fast pass through flame removes excess fuzz and fluff from the finished fabric. This process reduces the volume of the material by 6 to 10 percent and it proves to be a costly process for cotton textile producers.
Treatment
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There are other processes that cotton fabric goes through before being sold to the consumer or shipped away to be sewn into clothing. Mercerizing is a process in which the fabric is soaked in an alkali solution to increase the luster and shine of it. Some fabric is bleached to reduce imperfections in the color, and higher quality cottons are treated with chemicals to make them UV light resistant. The fabric is then dyed and printed, and you have a finished product.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit cotton field in contrast with blue sky image by lulu from Fotolia.com
