Question

trace the story of the journey of a shirt

Answer 1

Cotton cloth starts off as a seed, planted either by hand or by machine. After about three months, the cotton plants produce flowers, which live only for three days. They then die and are replaced with seedpods called cotton bolls. The bolls contain approximately 30 seeds each, and over the course of several months, moist and dense fibers form around them. When the bolls are mature (usually around the time the cotton plants have reached 4 feet in height), the bolls open, revealing the approximately 500,000 fluffy, white fibers contained inside.

Picking and Processing

Cotton can be picked one of several ways. Sometimes the fibers are removed by hand, in a long, laborious process. Other times, machines are used. There are two general mechanical harvesters used to pick cotton bolls. Strippers comb the plants and pick both opened and unopened cotton bolls. Pickers utilize a rotating spindle-like contraption to pick up the sticky fibers from only the open bolls.