The incredible true story of exactly how our clothing is made.
So how do we start with this,
and end up with this?
Lets learn about all the incredible elements that have to come together in order to progress from organic cotton seeds to a ready to be worn garment.
Our journey starts with Organic Cotton Farmers in Texas, USA
Texas is the largest producer of Organic Cotton in the US, accounting for about 90% of the market. We source our organic cotton from The Texas Organic Cotton Marketing Cooperative.
Our organic certification comes from the Texas Department of Agriculture which is regulated and must adhere to the organic standards set forth by the USDA.
All the cotton used in our products are GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) certified.
Lets Take a Closer Look at this Marvelous Plant
Cotton (Gossypium Hirsutum), also known as upland cotton or Mexican cotton, is the most widely planted species of cotton in the world. Globally, about 90% of all cotton production is of cultivars derived from this species.
Pollinated flowers become cotton bolls
It will take 6 - 8 weeks from when the cotton bolls begin to form, until its time to harvest.
A familiar white color starts to show.
Cotton Bolls almost ready to harvest.
Painting the fields White...
The Raw Cotton is Shipped to North Carolina
Our fabric is manufactured in facilities located in North and South Carolina, states central to the US fabric industry for over 200 years. This is where our organic cotton pulp will be cleaned and prepared.
Modern Cotton Gin Stands mechanically remove seeds and debris from the Cotton 'lint'.
Lets Turn this Cotton Lint into Yarn!
Bales of Compressed Cotton Lint ready to be 'carded'.
Carding machines make separate fibers into one continuous 'Sliver'
Slivers in large cans, Ready for the Lapformer.
Lapped cotton is extensively combed so that all fibers are in alignment. The combed cotton is then wound onto large bobbins.
Our cotton is Ring spun cotton, which is made by feeding the combed cotton into another process with a small metal ring.
The bottom bobbin sits on a spindel that rotates. The thread is pulled onto the bobbin through a small loop on a metal ring as the bobbin spins, twisting the yarn as it winds onto the bobbin.
It requires multiple bobbins of Ring Spun Cotton to be wound together to form the correct thickness required to knit our interlock fabric.
Wound onto cones, Organic Ring Spun Cotton Yarns await their final transformation.
Our favorite type of knit is called Interlock.
It's made on a Circular Knitting Machine.
Hundreds of cones of yarns are connected into the Circular Knitting Machine.
The yarns are fed through a series of yarn guides into the machine needles.
Diagram of how the interlocking fabric is made, knit by knit.
Each thread is knitted into a precise location, as the center of the machine rotates, the needles oscillate up and down knitting the fabric row by row.
The fabric is made into a single continuous, tubular fabric.
As the machine knits, the fabric is rolled inside of the machine, until it is ready to be collected.
After the fabric is collected into a roll, it will be inspected for flaws and quality controlled before it will be sent to be dyed.
The fabrics are ready to be dyed.
Our fabrics are dyed using low impact fiber reactive dyes which do not contain toxic substances like heavy metal or AZO compounds, or require chemical mordants to fix the dyes to the fiber.
The fabric is loaded into Dying Machine. Our dying process uses a Closed Loop Dyeing System where the waste water is recycled and reused, rather then being discarded after a single use.
After a series of heated dye washes and cooling rinses, the fabric is finished being dyed.
The fabric is then cut and pressed to have most of the water removed so it can be flat and ready for the Stentor Machine.
Finishing of the Fabric with the Stentor Machine
The Stentor Machine is a high tech machine that uses several different methods to ensure the fabric is as even as possible.
Using sensors it automatically adjusts the tension applied as the fabric is fed into the machine. This ensures it will be the correct gsm fabric weight.
The fabric is heated in order to ensure it is at an even and precise moisture level.
The fabric is then cooled down to room temperature by large rollers pumped with cold water.
Hundreds of yards of fabric pile up as the Stentor machine completes all its processes.
Our fabrics are then shipped to California to be printed.
Printed in San Francisco
Giant screens are housed in custom wooden frames.
Fabric Printing Screen Print frames are at least 4 ft wide by 5 ft tall.
100 ft long tables are used for printing the fabric. Fans blow air onto the fabrics to help the inks dry.
Each screen is set into a precise location, and repeated across hundreds of feet of fabric. Each fabric design is printed by hand.
A fresh batch of fabrics ready to be mailed up to our headquarters.
Fabrics are shipped to northern California to be cut and sewn.
All the materials have arrived to the Headquarters
Let's make this Portal Dress!
First we get the fabrics that will need to be cut into the pieces to be sewn together.
Cutting the interlock fabric. For a Portal dress, over 20 different pieces will need to be cut out.
Cutting the ribbed fabric. The portal dress has two different types of organic cotton fabric: interlock and ribbing.
Once all the pieces for the garment have been cut out, they are laid out neatly in a stack with a size tag on top, ready for the sewing to begin.
The hood is sewn first. The two sides plus the hood strip for the top and the front will be joined together.
Once the hood and the hood liner are sewn, the ribbing and grommet piece is attached. this will be where we add in the drawstring later.
Once we have attached the ribbed fabric to the pocket pieces, and sewn the body together, we're ready to attach the pockets onto the body.
Using pins we line both pockets onto the sides of the dress and use our cover stitch machine to attach them onto the body.
Using our Zig Zag machine, we construct the thumbhole cuffs made in the soft ribbed fabric.
With the hood sewn, the pockets attached, and the thumbhole cuffs made, its time to serge them all together. We then reinforce the seams with the coverstitch machine.
Using a handy tool we send the drawstring into a grommet and thread it all the way through the ribbed fabric channel and out the other grommet.
Next we finish the drawcords by attaching the brass cord ends.
The last stitches sewn are done using a bar tack machine. These final stitches are additional safe guards to ensure no stitches will unravel.
Final task is to quality control and removing loose threads with the thread snippers.
Drum roll please....
Our beloved Portal Dress is complete!
Thank you for learning about the incredible journey of How its Made!
If you'd like to learn about our story, mission and values, check out these other pages:
If you'd like to learn about Sacred Geometry, Our Design Process, and Philosophies, check out these pages:
Learn about the benefits of organic cotton, ways to reduce microplastics, and how superior organically grown cotton is compared to conventional:
