Plants Turned Into Fabric

COTTON. It’s in our favorite shirts, our undergarments and even your coffee filters! Known for their versatility and extreme comfort, cotton has been used for centuries all around the world for common household products.

Similarly to other products, the process to turn cotton into fabric is a long and particular process, requiring skills and a lot of machinery. Of course, the process starts off on a cotton farm. The process, which used to include human involvement at all times, is now a job for large machinery. Once the cotton is ready to be harvested, it is collected by a mechanical cotton picker, which looks like a giant tractor with teeth. It is then stored in modules, holding 13-15 bales of cotton.

After the cotton is collected, it is taken to a spinning factory.

1. The unprocessed cotton is then put into the cotton gin. Created in 1793 the cotton gin is used to reduce moisture and improve fiber quality. It is because of the cotton gin that cotton is easily mass-produced and has a widespread usage. Essentially, the cotton is cleaned, compressed, tagged and stored by the cotton gin.

How the cotton gin works:

- Cotton enter module feeders that fluff up cotton before cleaning

- Vacuum pipes send cotton to be cleaned and dried, removing excess moisture and breaking up large chunks of cotton.

- Soil, leaves, and other larger materials are removed by rods or screens, typically using a stuck machine that uses centrifugal force

- Cotton is sent to gin stands, where revolving circular saws pull the fiber through wire ribs, separating seeds from the fiber.



2. The cotton must then go onto the carding system. Carding is the process of pulling cotton fibers into a parallel direction. This allows cotton that may be too short, or is mixed with foreign objects to be eliminated and not used. Through machinery with specific wire toothed rollers, the cotton is transformed into a continuous, soft, rope-like strand called a sliver.

3. The cotton is then stretched, twisted, and is often spun into yarn. Ring spinning machines twist the product, until it is tight and thin until it reaches the “count” needed. The yarn is then taken to a to a circular knitting machine where the yarn is turned into fabric. The knitting machine uses thousands of needles, depending on the width of the fabric needed, to interlock loops of yarn and create fabric. The fabric is then washed, dyed and ready to produce shirts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYa4zneKbeY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJOteam-zWw

http://www.toyota-industries.com/product/textile/textile/made.html

http://cotton.tamu.edu/Kids%20Educational%20Materials/Cotton-From-Field-to-Fabric-129k-PDF.pdf