Facts you can cotton to
Homage to the Inventors
The manufacture of cotton cloth
on a grand scale was made possible by:
- John Kay's fly shuttle
(1733) which enabled a weaver to make twice as much cloth as ever before.
- The water-powered spinning
jenny, developed by Richard Arkwright about the same time, which did
the work of dozens of hand-spinners.
- And finally, Eli Whitney's
cotton gin (1793) which cleaned large quantities of Upland cotton quickly
and efficiently.
Beware of "immature" cotton
Ever look at a colored cotton
garment and see little white specks of undyed fiber?
That's "immature" or "dead"
cotton, whose fibers are shorter than those of mature
cotton.
These shorter fibers disturb
the alignment of the longer fibers, make the yarn twist during spinning,
and cause it to take dyes unevenly — hence the white specks.
The Quality Assurance people
at Lands' End are on the look-out for "immature" cotton, so you may never
have to see it in our products.
From field to fabric
After 150 days or so in the
fields, cotton goes to the gin where it's dried and cleaned. Seeds are
separated from the lint (that white, fluffy stuff) and the lint is compressed
into 500-pound bales.
On to the spinning mill, where
lint from several bales is mixed for uniformity. Carding machines comb
and straighten the fibers, then the fibers are drawn into rope-like strands
called slivers.
The slivers are drawn out further,
and twisted until the yarns are of the desired thickness.
Finally the yarns go to the
mills, where they are knit or woven into soft, comfortable cotton fabric.
Why is cotton so comfortable?
Cotton feels so good next to
your skin because its fibrous ends are so soft and yielding to the touch.
Cotton wicks body moisture
away from your skin and, through its fiber structure, carries body vapor
easily into the air for "breathability."
Last but not least, cotton
is an excellent insulator, giving you good protection with light weight.
Classing cotton
Good Middling, Strict Middling,
Good Ordinary Plus — these are just some of the many classes of cotton
in the U. S.
Classing is a crucial step,
as it determines the value and end-use of the cotton.
After the cotton is baled at
the gin, samples are taken from each bale and classed by experts according
to staple (fiber) length, strength, fineness, color, amount of "trash"
and other characteristics.
Though cotton is classed by
how it feels and looks to the classer, scientific instruments are becoming
increasingly important in evaluating cotton.
How much cotton do we consume?
U.S. textile mills consume about
2.9 to 3.4 billion pounds of cotton per year.
At Lands' End, roughly 500,000
pounds of cotton merchandise PER WEEK pass through our warehouse doors.
No wonder we say cotton is king at Lands' End!
Colored cotton?
When the Spanish conquistadors
first came to the deserts of Peru in 1532, they were amazed to find cotton
growing in tan, maroon, mauve and other shades.
Today, University of Texas
anthropologist James Vreeland and his group are bringing this "country
cotton" to the world with goods hand-spun and handwoven with pre-Columbian
techniques by villagers in Northern Peru. The cotton may also be spun
with today's machines for high-volume production.
Meanwhile, in California, cotton
breeder Sally Fox has developed colored cotton in browns and forest green,
which will be tested in "natural" jeans and sweaters.
Cotton — the finishing
touches
Hundreds of mechanical and chemical
finishes can be applied to cotton after it's been knit or woven.
Some may be applied to make
the fabric more water-repellent, flame resistant, or shrink-resistant.
Other processes may be added
to change the feel or the appearance of the fabric, as mercerization,
which makes threads silkier, and glace-finish, which gives them a high
luster.
From blue jeans to bandages
Cotton is the world's most versatile
fiber. According to the National Cotton Council, there are about 100 major
end uses for cotton.
Over half the cotton in the
U.S. goes into clothing, about a third into home furnishings, the rest
into industrial products as diverse as typewriter ribbons, book bindings,
medical supplies, parachutes and boots.
Cottonseed oil from the seed
of the plant is used for cooking oil, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and other
products.
Library cotton yarns
Spinning machines twist cotton
fiber up to the desired "count" needed for weaving or knitting —
as many as 10 to 30 twists per inch.
The higher the yarn count,
the finer the yarn. The size of a yarn is written with an apostrophe s,
as "20's," indicating a single cotton yarn.
Ply yarns (as in "two-ply")
are two or more yarns twisted together on twisting machines.
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