Finally, finally, it is possible to venture outside without an extra layer and the winter woollies really can be put away for a while (fingers crossed). Inevitably this has turned my thoughts towards Summer yarns and in particular cotton which makes such a lovely light, breathable fabric for wearing in warmer weather.
On the face of it, cotton is a very friendly fibre. It is plant based (which makes it vegan-friendly, unlike wool or silk) and biodegradable. But is also ethically difficult. It has a long history. Even though it was considered a new textile in 18th century Europe, it had been grown elsewhere for centuries previously and has been present as a plant on earth for between 10 and 20 million years. However, it is very fussy about where it lives, preferring a temperature of around 15 degrees with little or no frost and around 20 to 25 inches of rain every year. This means that it lives in a band around the globe taking in arid regions in Africa, Australia, Asia and Central and South America. Only one part of the plant is important to humans and that is seed-pod or bol, in which the seeds are encased in pale strands of cellulose fibre. The pods are produced between 160 and 200 days after being planted and when ripened burst open to show fluffy white insides.
It is thought likely that humans first worked out that they could use these fibres to make textiles in the Indus Valley – archaeologists examining copper beads through a microscope found tiny cotton fibres which was woven around the sixth millennium BC – and sophisticated cotton textiles have been produced in Africa, Asia and the Americas for millennia. However, not only is it difficult to farm, it is extremely labour intensive to harvest and process. Traditionally harvesting and sorting was done by hand. Fibres too short to be processed were discarded, the longer fibres ginned – a process which removed the seeds from the cotton. Knots and dirt were removed, the fibres struck with a wooden bow to soften them and make them more flexible. They were then carded and combed, to separate them and make them lie parallel, before being spun onto a distaff using a spindle, creating a thread ready to be woven into a fabric. In almost every culture around the world, it was women who were in charge of spinning cotton, the weaving process is less gendered, for example in India and Africa it was often done by men. The fabric produced whether woven or knitted, is light and breathable. Perfect for warmer weather.
Cotton came to Europe by way of India. The delicate patterns and use of colours characteristic of Indian textiles became very fashionable in the 18th century and by 1766 muslins and calicoes were so fashionable that cotton constituted 75% of the trade of the British East India Company. But cotton was also being grown in the Americas by then, in a large part to feed the voracious textile industry in England, and the large scale plantations desperately needed cheap, abundant labour to make them profitable. Local populations were decimated by disease or openly hostile to the farmers, and so they turned to slaves. Between 1500 and 1800 over 8 million people were transported to the Americas from Africa, by the Spanish, Portuguese, French, British, Dutch and Danish to serve as slaves. And it is worth noting that while it is often assumed that the currencies used to buy slaves were weapons or precious metals, a great many more were exchanged for cotton cloth. At first the cloth was brought from India, but later raw cotton was imported to Europe where it was woven with designs tailored for the African market and this was big business. For example, between 1739 and 1779 roughly a third of cotton exported from Manchester was bound for Africa to be exchanged for slaves.
Slavery ended in America, but the cotton industry continued to grow as the US started to develop its own textile industry. Today cotton is the most widely used natural fibre in clothing. It accounts for 2.5% of the world’s arable land and around 67.9 million tonnes are produced every year. The biggest producers are India and China, with the US and Africa being the biggest exporters of raw cotton. Slavery may have ended, but there are issues around fair trade and labour which are still very controversial. It continues to be picked by hand in developing countries and in Xinjiang in China, which produces 20% of the world’s cotton, forced labour is allegedly used. In addition, cotton is a thirsty crop, requiring 8 to 10 thousand litres of water per kilogram of cotton, more in drier arears.
So what do we have in store? We have Amira Light by Lang Yarns, which is an organic cotton in a DK weight. We have Anchor Creativo which is a 4ply. Some of our cottons are blended with other fibres, such as Styelcraft Bamboo & Cotton which has a lovely drape and is very soft, or Lang’s Artsy which is designed to be crocheted and contains some nylon. We even have a cotton blend sock yarn – Footprints, which is gorgeously light and soft. As our website is currently being upgraded, not all our yarns are on there, but they will be soon. They are in the shop! I have to say, though, that just writing this blog is making me rethink my stock of cotton completely, not to mention my wardrobe! I think I may focus a bit more than I have done on the original source of the cottons that I stock.
If you are interested in the difficult history of cotton and other textiles, I strongly recommend The Golden Thread – How Fabric Changed History by Kassia St Clair from where I gleaned much of the information I shared above.