Textiles

This is a pair of jeans, one of the world's most popular items of clothing. What are they made of? There is a label here, which says one hundred percent cotton. They are made of cotton fabric. Cotton grows on a plant, as small fluffy balls.

The cotton plant needs a lot of sun and water to grow. The cotton is then harvested by hand... ...or with large picking machines. Cotton soaks up water. It can absorb up to 27 times its own weight. So it needs to be dried with hot air.

When dry, the cotton is separated from seeds, seed husks, and other unwanted stuff… ...so that there are only white balls left. The cotton is cleaned one more time... ...before being compressed into bales, so it’s easier to transport. Now it's time to comb, to card the cotton fibers. You can do this by hand or with carding machines. A carding machine has rollers with sharp teeth that pull the fibers apart and straighten them, so that they are all in the same direction.

Carding also removes the shorter cotton fibers, so that only long and straight fibers remain. Long, thin, flexible textile fibers like these are needed to create fabrics. The carded cotton is twisted together into a thin thread which is taken up by a flyer. And the flyer spins the thread onto a spool, called a bobbin. After that, several threads are spun together into yarn.

The more threads, the coarser the yarn. Then the yarn is dyed. Most jeans are coloured blue. The yarn is woven into fabric. The finished fabric is rolled onto rollers.

Now it’s time to make a pair of jeans. The fabric is cut into the various pieces required. The pieces are sewn together with thread on a sewing machine. The metal buttons are usually riveted. Many other things can be used to make textile fibres.

We can get linen from the flax plant. We can get wool from the hair of sheep, cashmere goats, and angora rabbits. And silk can be made from the silkworm cocoon. Linen, wool, silk, and cotton come from nature - they are examples of natural fibers. Textile fibers can also be made artificially.

These are called synthetic fibers. Polyester, for example, is made of plastic. Viscose - which comes from trees - is a natural material, but chemicals are needed to produce textile fibers from it. So there are many different textile materials. But if you look at the label on a pair of jeans, then you will almost certainly see that they are made of cotton..

mostly.