Picking and Initial Processing of Cotton

1. Picking
When cotton is ripe, it needs to be picked. Traditionally, people pick it by hand. Workers carefully pick the cotton bolls from the cotton plants. Now, there's also mechanical picking. Mechanical pickers are very efficient and can harvest a large amount of cotton in a short time. The picking heads of the machines rotate and pull the cotton bolls off the plants.

2. Ginning
After being picked, the cotton contains cottonseeds. We need to use a cotton gin to remove the seeds. There are two types of cotton gins, the saw gin and the roller gin. The saw gin is suitable for processing cotton other than long-staple cotton. It pulls the cotton fibers away from the seeds by using saw teeth. The roller gin is mainly used for long-staple cotton. It separates the cotton fibers from the seeds through the squeezing and friction of rollers and blades. After ginning, we get lint cotton, which is the main raw material for further processing.

3. Baling
To make it easier to transport and store, the lint cotton after ginning will be compressed and baled. The baled cotton has a smaller volume and higher density, so it can be transported to textile mills and other processing places more conveniently.

Spinning Process

1. Opening and Cleaning
The baled cotton first goes through the opening and cleaning process. In the opening and cleaning machine, the cotton is gradually loosened and impurities like cotton leaves and dust are removed. It's like giving the cotton a "bath" and "combing its hair" to make it purer and looser, getting it ready for even mixing and spinning later.

2. Carding
The cotton that has gone through opening and cleaning then enters the carding machine. The main function of the carding machine is to comb the fibers and further comb the cotton into single fibers. It works by using parts like the cylinder and the doffer to comb the cotton into a thin web of cotton, and at the same time remove some small impurities and short fibers. This process makes the cotton fibers more parallel and straightened, improving the uniformity of the fibers.

3. Drawing
The cotton sliver after carding is still rather thin and weak, so it needs to be drawn. The drawing frame combines several cotton slivers together and stretches them through rollers to make the fibers even more straightened and parallel, and also makes the thickness of the cotton sliver more even. Usually, it takes two or three drawing processes to ensure the quality of the subsequent spinning.

4. Roving
On the roving frame, the cotton sliver after drawing is stretched and twisted further. Stretching makes the fibers longer and thinner, and twisting gives the fibers a certain amount of twist to make them have some strength and form a roving. The twist of the roving is relatively small, mainly to make it convenient for the subsequent fine spinning.

5. Spinning
The roving enters the spinning frame and is stretched and twisted again. The spinning frame has a higher draft ratio and can spin the roving into finer yarn. The twisted yarn has higher strength and is suitable for weaving. During this process, by adjusting the parameters of the machine, we can produce yarns of different counts to meet the different requirements for the thickness of the yarn used in making bags.

Weaving Process (Making the Fabric for Bags)

1. Warping
First, warping is done. A certain number of warp yarns (the longitudinal yarns) are wound onto a warp beam according to the specified length and arrangement order. The purpose of warping is to make the warp yarns arranged neatly and with even tension, providing a suitable warp package for weaving.

2. Sizing
For some yarns, especially fine-count yarns or those used for high-density fabrics, sizing is needed. Sizing is to evenly apply sizing paste (the main ingredients are starch, polyvinyl alcohol, etc.) onto the warp yarns, so that a layer of film forms on the surface of the yarns. This film can improve the abrasion resistance of the yarns, increase their strength, and reduce the breakage during the weaving process.

3. Drawing-in
Drawing-in is to thread the warp yarns one by one through drop wires, healds and reeds according to the requirements of the fabric structure. Drop wires are used to control the tension of the warp yarns and detect yarn breakage; healds are used to control the raising and lowering of the warp yarns to form a shed; reeds are used to control the density and arrangement of the weft yarns (the transverse yarns).

4. Weaving
Weaving is the process of interlacing the warp yarns and the weft yarns to form a fabric. Depending on the use and design requirements of the bags, different weaving methods can be used, such as plain weave, twill weave or satin weave. Plain weave has the most interlacing points, a tight structure and is very durable. Twill weave has obvious diagonal lines and feels softer. Satin weave has a smooth surface and a good luster. During the weaving process, the weft yarns are introduced into the shed through shuttles (in shuttle looms) or weft insertion devices (in shuttleless looms, like air-jet looms, water-jet looms, rapier looms, etc.) and interlaced with the warp yarns.

Bag-making Process

1. Cutting
The woven fabric is cut according to the designed size of the bag. We can use cutting machines or cut it by hand to make sure the size of the cut fabric is accurate and the edges are neat. So we customize any size bag for your. MInimum order quantity is only 50.

2. Sewing
The cut fabric is sewn with a sewing machine. For an ordinary bag, maybe we just need to sew three sides simply, leaving one side as an opening. For bags with special designs, like those with zippers, handles and other parts, we also need to install these accessories. During the sewing process, we should pay attention to the quality of the sewing thread and the stitch length to ensure the firmness of the bag.

3. Printing
A bag for high-end uses like jewelry packaging, there may also be decorative treatments like gold stamping or embossing to make the bag more beautiful. We can print any logo as your like. Cotton bag is better to print than other fabric in our shop, because no fuzzy on the surface and no need mold.

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