Is it Monday? Already?
Yep...it sure is!
And, that means time for a wee bit of a
Mystery!
Have you ever thought about the
wonderful cotton fibers that are used
to make most of the quilts we sew/use today?
Well, without giving a long and somewhat boring
Botany lesson...
Here are a few interesting facts
about a fabulous fiber called
COTTON
---Cotton seeds are strong enough to travel thousands of miles on the wind
---Man has made cotton into fabric since at least 3,000 BC.
---It takes approx 150 days for the cotton plant to grow from seed to mature (open bolls).
--- In 2000, Texas growers produced over 4 million bales, making over $1 billion to the Texas cotton industry. Texas annually produces about 25% of the entire U.S. crop and plants over 6 million acres! That's over 9,000 square miles of cotton fields. Texas is the leader in cotton production for the US.
---Cotton is in the same family as a hibiscus flower
---A bale of cotton is about 500 lbs and measures 54" by 20"
---One bale of cotton can make 215 pairs of jeans, or 3,085 diapers, or
313,600 - $100 bills!
---For each 100lbs of fiber produced there will be about 162 pounds of cotton seed
---The cotton seed is used to feed livestock and is crushed to make oil
---There are about 500 varieties of cotton. Length of fiber and purity of color along with
stress tests for strength...determines the cotton's quality
---US currency is made with 75% cotton and 25% linen
---Carding machines can process cotton in excess of 100 lbs per hour
---At 1,500 feet per minute a machine pulls the fibers into lofty,
thick strands called slivers ready for spinning into thread
---The newer rotary screen-printing machines can send a fabric
thru at 3,50000 yards per hour with a 36 inch design repeat...and
as many as 16 colors at a time
After quite a few hours of research,
I was unable (sadly) to find out how many
yards of fabric in a bale of cotton. But, it was
calculated that 290 bedsheets could
be made from a bale...
so, we could maybe have some idea from that.
~~~
And, one other weee note, I've actually spun
cotton fibers on my spinning wheel. Cotton is rather
difficult to spin relative to other fibers such as wool, linen
and silk....because cotton fibers are short.
Are YOU wanting to WIN? Win what? you say?
Well, it's ...FIVE FAT QUARTERS
(in colors of your choice)!!
Now... are you sure you want to WIN?? ok..
Here's all ya gotta do...
please, please ...SEND an EMAIL (with your answer)
important - put "mystery monday" in the subject
and...tell me....
how many times did I use the word
"cotton"
YUP thaz it!...
o...and of course, you need to be a
"rubyslipperz" follower.
A comment would be great too!!
Drawing will be Wednesday June 15th
~~~~~~~~~
Winner for last week's
Mystery Monday and the Quilter's cookbook
will be announced shortly!
~~~~~~~~~
Winner for last week's
Mystery Monday and the Quilter's cookbook
will be announced shortly!
29 comments:
Thanks for another great mystery monday. Sent in my answer.
Like Natasha, I have to jump in and say thank you for another great mystery monday. This is always so fun and I can't wait to start my week off with your newest game. Kinda reminds me of Sudoku or Word Search.
I sent my answer in too! Thanks again.
What a fun giveaway! I entered!
You have fun giveaways! I've sent my answer, and another cotton fact. Thanks.
I learned something today! Thanks for the info.
Very cool! Know much more about cotton production than I did a few minutes ago.
Very informative and smart way of a giveaway...thanks for sharing!
I sent you an email. Thanks for the chance!
I sent you an email with my answer! Thanks for the chance to win!
Jacque in SC
quiltnsrep(at)yahoo(dot)com
I can't imagine spinning cotton - I can't even master wool. Great information today as well as thank you for the give away.
I sent you an e-mail. :) Thanks for the cotton lesson. :)
What a lot of interesting information! I think the most surprising to me is that cotton is in the same family as a hibiscus flower. Sending my email now!
Thanks for the cotton facts for the Monday mystery. Emailed you my answer.
I LOVED THAT 'COTTON POST'! DON'T THINK I'VE LEARNED MUCH ABOUT COTTON SINCE MIDDLE SCHOOL-THANKS!
Thanks for the very interesting post. I really enjoyed finding out lots of things that I didn't know about cotton.
A puzzle even I can do!! Thanks, I will count and email.
I did it. Very interesting post and fun game
I just sent in my answer, too! Thanks for the opportunity! Your post is very interesting and informative! BTW, did you know that the land of Oz, otherwise known as Kansas, is also a big cotton producer? Yep. It is.
Take care!
Angela
Thank you for such a fun and informative post/giveaway!
How interesting that US money is made of cotton and linen. I wonder if all money is made of cloth fibers. I always thought it was paper fibers.
Great Game! Love all the information about cotton. I emailed you my guess.
All those facts on a Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend.
Just put your logo link for your Mystery Monday game/giveaways on my Giveaway and May for Me Page of my Blog. Here is the link. http://marciascraftysewing.blogspot.com/p/may-for-me.html
Ooh, I'm in this one! I forgot to send off last week's answer so I missed out. A lot of the cotton crop in Australia was in flood areas and was wiped out earlier this year :(. Glad you guys grow lots of cotton though!
I do BELIEVE your mind works OVERTIME..smiles. How you find the time to come up with all the fun things you do. NEAT..and interesting.
What a neat blog! I will be back!
I learned something reading this post. I didn't realize Texas was cotton king in the U.S. Thank you.
Am a new follower and just wanted to say, that I love your blog. Especially love the facts on cotton!
Very interesting information. I'm inspired now to go out once more on a search for those ideal cotton sheets.
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