Needle Arts Corner - Spring 2011
Welcome to Needle Arts Corner, this is my spring issue!
With spring comes renewal; the melting of this ice/snow mess that we have accumulated over this long winter, flowers start peeking up from the old mulch, trees bud, and animals appear from their long rest. Farwell and good riddance I say to slippery roads and shoveling! The sun is very powerful and the days are getting longer, hooray!
So I thought that I would write about cotton, everyone wears it and recognizes it. Here we go: Cotton is a fabric that we use all year long, especially in the warmer months. Cotton is made from a natural fiber and it breathes like we do. It also dries pretty fast, but not as fast as a polyester item. Polyester is really just spun plastic and it cannot absorb water, if a garment is a cotton/poly blend then you get the benefit of both products. This blend makes the garment soft, absorbent, easy to care for, and more colorfast.
Because cotton is a natural fiber, the dyes tend to fade over several washings. Garments also tend to loose their shape. I recommend dry cleaning for your favorite items. I know that it is a bit pricey, but in the long run you will look and feel better wearing it. Take corduroy slacks for instance, this 100% cotton product shrinks, fades and bags over the time that you wash and wear it. Because they are popular right now, they are on the expensive side. You can wear slacks a couple of times before they need to be dry cleaned. Sizing is a stiffener that is added to the fabric during processing. This makes the fabric easier to cut and sew. Dry cleaning keeps the sizing on the fabric so the garment can then keep its shape, which makes it look brand new. Same for cotton sweaters, as soon as they hit water they start to look like rags! With cotton tee shirts, they are made and priced to wash, wear and discard. It is nice to have a large array of colors that you can mix and match, but they do not have any kind of staying power.
Cotton fun facts:
Cotton is a plant and it has been found around the world for centuries, in fact it has been used for over 7,000 years. It has been found in primitive caves in various regions, it also grown in different colors, such as rust, brown and light purple. It is mostly cultivated in white as it is easier to process and dye.
Some of the names of cotton are “White gold” and “Vegetable lamb”. United States money uses a blend of cotton and linen. One bale of cotton makes 313,600 one dollar bills or 215 pairs of jeans. The United States cotton industry exports 6 to 9 million bales of cotton every year. Value of this exceeds $3 billion dollars.
Samuel Slater immigrated to the US in 1790 and started the first cotton mill. He built the cotton mill machines from memory as it was against the law in Great Britain to take any type of cotton technology out of the country. You may view this history at the Samuel Slater mill located in Pawtucket, RI. Cotton had been grown in North America for many centuries. The U.S. is still one of the largest cotton producers, the “Cotton Belt” stretches across the mid to lower part of our country from California to Virginia covering 14 states.
The boll weevil, an insect, which is a natural enemy of cotton, entered the US from Mexico in 1892. It hit Alabama by 1915 and added to the woes of the Great Depression. The Boll Weevil is credited with economic diversification to the southern US, including the expansion of peanut cropping. There is a monument erected in honor of the boll weevil in Enterprise, AL in 1919 as a tribute for this expansion.
I could go on forever about cotton as it has a monster history. But I hope that you enjoyed this tip of the cotton iceberg! For lessons on how to make refined cotton into beautiful quilts, please contact me.
