There is sateen, percale, supima, egyptian and a ton of other cotton materials out there. But wait a minute, isn’t cotton just a plant?

Than there is 100% cotton, combed cotton, long staple cotton, single ply yarn cotton with each giving accreditation to its superiority!

Cotton is darn cotton right? Why these complex nuances? How am I supposed to choose?

Fair enough.

Let’s get down to its essence and make this easy for you!

Understanding fibres, yarn, materials, fabric & textiles:

Fibres make up yarn make up materials make up fabric make up textiles!

With that out of the way;

The 4 main sources of textile materials are:

• Animal (wool, silk)
• Plant (cotton, flax, jute)
• Mineral (asbestos, glass fibre)
• Synthetic (nylon, polyester, acrylic)

The first three being natural and the last being well, synthetic; man made.

Before delving into all materials, lets talk about the MOST POPULAR option for bedding; Cotton, ESPECIALLY since this material has the widest obfuscation about details.

Steps of getting cotton to become a textile to use for bedding:

1. Cotton fibres is plucked from the cotton plants
2. Cotton fibre surrounds the seeds of the cotton plant
3. Because cotton fibres come in the form of spiral like twist like those of ropes, it is easy to be made into a thread cos of the interlocking properties
4. They are then cleaned; impurities are removed
5. Large bales of cotton fiber are then transferred to spinning mills. Spinning mills convert fiber in to yarns (thread)
6. These yarns or thread cones are moved to Weaving. Weaving is a process of interlacing yarns to make into fabric
7. Weaving creates the different materials such as sateen, percale etc
8. Fabric is in raw form therefore it goes on to next process
9. Fabric that is weaved is then bleached and washed to clean it thoroughly
10. The fabric is then dyed or printed on
11. Various finishes are applied such as soft, wrinkle free, easy care, iron easy
12. It is then finally stitched into bedsheets, or pillows and everything else

At point 6: where the weaving begins is where the 4 main bedding cotton fabrics are created, namely:

• Sateen
• Percale
• Flannel
• Twill

The means by which threads are interlocked is what creates these different fabrics and the resultant feel. We will talk about these individual fabrics in future articles.

Now you know the basics of a fabric creation. Anything more, you will have  an information overload.

Rather! SUBSCRIBE to find out the secrets of Long staple cotton, Egyptian Cotton, Combed Cotton, Chambray, Supima and others!

And of course no longer be tricked by fake advertising and false justifications of superiority.