How to wash your Handloom Cotton Fabric - Folksmarket.com

Hey folks! In our last blog, we have briefly touched upon the 4 ways to care cotton fabric and talked in depth about the cotton, its evolution, its properties, types etc. The reason was to know your fabric before you can start caring about them. Now this piece will briefly touch upon the ways you can wash your cotton fabric.

Normally its not a science. Most of the manufacturers give instructions as how to wash and care for the fabric. Yet they may not be complete for wanting of the space! Its always a good idea to acquaint some basic principles that can be selectively use for different kind of fabric(apparels and furnishing) rather than knowing each and every detail for each and every kind of fabric!

Fabric often gets stained because of greases, oil, waxes, polluted chemicals present in the atmosphere and dyes. The aim of the fabric care, thus is two folds:

1-      Removing the pollutants

2-      Ironing to remove the wrinkles and bring freshness to the fabric

Fabric care is the joint responsibility of you and your cleaning agent.

Washing your Cotton Fabric

A - Spotting the spots

          1-      Identify the area that needs special attention. Usually its    neck, underarms and cuffs that need bit more rubbing. So before washing, check these spots.

         

          2-      Check if the fabric has some embellished (beads, graphics, zari, glitter etc). This area needs to pull inside out while washing.

 

          3-      Categorize your cotton fabric as “All white cotton” or “Dyed cotton”. Dyed cotton can also be thought as printed, graphed etc. Aim is to wash all white cotton and rest of the clothes separately. You can have multiple batching of the clothes depending upon the need.

B - Choose the detergent

           1-      General purpose detergent works well for cotton fabric and most of the fabric. We need to see of there is any scum or leftover on the fabric.

   

           2-      Check whether your detergent is mild or harsh. One good domestic way is to dissolve the recommended (normally given on the wrappers) quantity of detergent in 900 ml of cold water and allow the detergent and water to sit for 24 hours. Note if there is a residue settled in the bottom of the container. Now if it happens, then be sure that these residues are not going to be washed easily and often they will leave the whitish stain on the fabric. They are called as scum.

            3-      Choose the detergent which leaves no such scum. Don’t settle for low quality detergents.

C - Bleaching of white stained Cotton Fabric

One of the important characteristic of cotton fabric is that it can be bleached easily and retain that saints look for years. Hydrogen peroxide is a great bleaching agent. But Chlorine bleach is normally recommended for cotton fabric.

1- Take around 4 liters of semi hot water. Make sure that water is hot enough to clean but not hot enough to damage the fabric. Ideally you should be able to insert your finger to judge that temperature of the water. Mix a cup of dry dishwasher soap and add 1/3 cup of bleaching agent. Ensure that the mixing of this is not taking place in a metal container.

2- Put all the stained white clothes in small batches in this mixture and allow the fabric to soak the bleaching water. Do not agitate or rub at this moment, just allow them to soak.

3- Remove the clothes in 30-40 minutes depending upon the intensity of the stained. In any way not more than 40 minutes.

4- After 30-40 minutes, put the fabric immediately into washing machine without rinsing the bleached fabric. Add some washing detergent, on your washing machine and when its about to reach the rinse cycle add a 2/3^rd of White vinegar (or distilled vinegar or virgin vinegar). Let machine completes its washing. Dry the fabric after wash in clothing lines or washing machine. But make sure that you still put the clothes in clothing lines even if you dried in machine. Sun rays are so essential to fabric! Allow them to breath in fresh air.

5- White vinegar is essentially a distilled form of vinegar that is a mixture of acetic acid and water. It’s a common household, economical liquid and environment friendly. It kills all the bacteria, fungi and moulds from the fabric.

D - Other batch of CottonFabric

            1-  Wash cotton fabric either in machine or hand wash. Use lukewarm water and laundry detergent.

            2-   Irrespective of the fact that you are washing in machine, soak the clothes for 30 minutes in a non metallic container with the detergent.

  

            3-   Rub those spotted stained parts after 30 minutes. It may not be clean but at least you have agitated the dirt agents and they are more likely to adhere with the detergent while washed in a machine.

           4-    While soaking the embellished clothes and fabric pull them inside out. Don’t rub them hard, either don’t rub or rub very very gently.

   

           5-    Make sure that you rinse properly. This consumes more water than that required for washing. So please make sure that you utilize the water. Rinsing is an act of allowing the detergent to wash away taking dirt along.

          6-     Machine dried clothes should also be dried under the sky for a while.

   

    Cotton fabric are breathing fabric, the care as you have seen so far is not difficult. We all wish to care our fabric not only for its durable use but also to get a fresh feel away from pollution every time we wear. So why not we get more out of our efforts and make our fabric safe in our hands!!

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folks@folksmarket.com

Cotton Fabric Producers,Traders wake up with shock - Folksmarket.com

The farmers, traders, importer-exporter wake up this morning with the shock of the plummeted price of the cotton. Global price of the cotton crashed significantly from the March 2011 last year. Owing to the forecast of bigger crops and waning demand have pushed down US cotton price from $2.2 per pound to $0.96/pound, which roughly translates to current price of INR 119/Kg from INR 420/Kg. 

Expected increase in Cotton Imports

The abrupt lowering of the price has generated an irresistible urge to increase the import of Cotton. Many textile companies cater to the world market which prefers cotton from US, Egypt and Australia. The cotton of these countries is finer in count and impurity free than the Indian cotton because of solid mechanization process in these countries. India is world’s second largest cotton producing country in the world. Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh account for 90% of the total cotton production in India.

The price scenario now supports the import strategy of the textile companies as the price of the cotton in India today is INR 94/Kg, still lower than the global price of INR 119/Kg. 

After forex adjustments this price will be lower by 10% or less. As long as Indian textile companies receive a margin of 10% in the global rate, they will continue importing more. The superior cotton of US is greater in demand. The industry source confirmed that the excitement among Indian textile companies for imported cotton will last as long as the price differential is less than 10%.

Impact on Farmers

After a sharp rise in cotton production for two successive years, the decreased price will have a disastrous impact over the cotton production in India and Pakistan. Already there is a decline in number of hectares cultivated for cotton from last year. In Gujarat for example the total cultivation area for cotton was 3 million hectares last year which is going to decrease by atleast 500,000 hectares this year. Similarly the Pakistani farmers are also apprehensive about the sowing cotton this year because of the price decline. Though the cotton growth in the two countries take place in contrasting policies yet the result for India and Pakistani farmers remain tricky and at times dangerous. The complete ban proposed by central govt and executing partial ban on cotton export and abundance of illegal seed in the two countries pushed the farmers on the brink of hand to mouth situation.

Govt lacks will

The farmers are marred by the lax regulatory regime and absence of much needed structural transformation in both these countries. And now since the seed price has crashed from the last year price, the farmers will be less averse to grow cotton and look for other alternative to get better results from their investment. The lopsided cotton policy has already forced the farmers to sell their cotton at INR 32,000 per candy (355.5 Kg) against the same at INR 62,000 per candy they sold at, last year. Early trend suggest that there will be a minimum of 15% decline in the cotton production in these two countries.

Chinese aggression

China has taken the advantage of this fluid situation. China shocked the market by huge purchase of cotton from the US. Though China is world’s largest consumer of cotton and buying steadily since March 2011 but given the scale of its purchase close to 94% of net cotton export sales from US (795,700 bales) [1 bale = 170 Kg] is not in proportion to the huge demand back in China. The analyst fears that new purchase is meant for the strategic reserves of China and not the demand from apparel manufacturing. 

"Demand in China is anemic, but the reserve continues to buy to take advantage of lower prices for cotton," said Robert Antoshak, managing director of apparel maker and consultancy Olah Inc., which designs and produces apparel for Gap Inc. GPS +1.17%and Ann Inc. ANN +1.89%"They don't want to get caught buying expensive cotton again." [Source: Wall Street Journal]

The fear of lower price and increasing supplies in the coming year (beginning Aug 2012) starts surfacing. 

Road Ahead

The coming months may not see a decline in the order of cotton but the revenues are certainly going to be lesser. With the high import of cotton by the textile companies looming, the worst affected are the traditional cotton producing farmers who may either have to settle for less export price or reduced demand in domestic market.

The already tottered economy has suffered yet another blow and most of the countries govt including India and Pakistan have no strategy to counter. Govt has to be proactive to see how it can maintain a balance between the global market situation and cotton growing farmers.

May be by incentivizing the cotton fabric producers and popularizing the demand of cotton fabric both domestic and internationally. The moment calls for an out of the box solution.

[Check www.folksmarket.com)

Mercerized Handloom Cotton Fabric by Folksmarket.com

Often known as Pearl Cotton, Mercerization is a chemical treatment of Cotton Fabric and Cotton Yarn to give it more shiny, lusturous appearance and also increases its strength. Cotton Fabric is the most widely used fabric, be it in Handloom or Powerloom. Around 60% of all the Fabric used for Apparels and Home Furnishing, come from the cotton. The first use of Cotton assigned to India from where it reaches to different part of the world. The earliest use dates back to 3000 BC!

The English name of cotton is taken from the Arabic ‘(al) qutn’. The fibre is often spun to make breathable textile which is soft and most widely used natural fibre. 

It thus become obvious that lot and lot of experiments started to make this fabric more appealing to the consumers. Sometimes the fibre is altered keeping in mind the end result and use but sometimes its pure lateral thinking and experiment.

Mercerization of Cotton, though now symbolizes a lab treatment, is the name after the scientist who experimented it clinically. 

Cotton straight from the Farms

Before that lets look at what actually comes out of the nature that we use as Cotton Yarn. 

Cotton is a soft staple fibre that comes around the seed in the form of a ball, thus Cotton Ball. Each fibre is produced from an individual seed rooted through the base. One cotton ball has approximate 5,000 seeds altogether. The fibre starts out as projecting a hollow sheath and fresh layer is laid down in the inside of the sheath. The fibre, at this time, looks like a solid cylindrical rod with a central lumen consisting entire of cellulose. The ball then burst because added lateral movement of fibre produces a force. The fibre dries up due to the sun and collapse. The fibre is flat and there are alternating left and right twist per turn. The cotton also known as Kapas locally is then collected from the field and reaches to the mills for further processing. The carding machine in cotton mills turns the fibre into cotton yarn. Normally cotton fabric shrinks by 3% until pre-treated to neutralize that effect.

 

Mercer, Mercerization and Shine

Mercerization of the Cotton is the treatment of cotton fibre with Caustic Soda. John Mercer in 1851 got the patent for his work that he did with cotton fibre using caustic soda, sulphuric acid and many other chemicals. He listed all the changes in the fibre after treating it with various chemicals. One important point he mentioned, was that the fibre swelled, rounded and straightens out once treated with Caustic Soda. Though fibres swelled and straighten, there was no luster and the British Cotton trade industry showed NO INTEREST in this invention and the invention remained obscured for 40 years till 1890 when Horace Lowe showed what the Cotton industry missed out in these 40 years.

In 1890, Horace Lowe suggested that by applying Mercer’s caustic soda process to cotton yarn or fabric under tension, a resultant high lustre is observed in the yarn. The tension, which was missing in Mercer’s process, makes the surface of the fibre smooth and rounded and results in the reflection of the light off the surface. This is similar to the glass fibre phenomenon. The Mercerization was huge success and Cotton Industry embraced this process overnight. Lowe was gracious enough not to use his name even partially and the process is still called Mercerization and used only for Cotton.

Use of Mercerized Cotton

Merc Cotton by Folksmarket.com

Mercerized Cotton by Folksmarket.com

Though mercerized cotton abbreviated as merc. in textile industry finds it use in virtually all the things like apparel, furnishing yet its most important use is for Crochet.

Tension and Lustre

It is established that without tension there is no lustre. The more glass like fibre, the more the lustre will be. In the mercerization, cotton is held under tension for 10 minutes and treated with 21-23% of NaOH (Caustic Soda).

As the twist is required to give tension, it was found that fine, long staple cotton fibre gives the best adhesion required for tension. Thus it is those type of cotton that is selected for the mercerization process. In India, the cotton grown over Deccan Plateau under ideal condition and Egyptian cotton are good for mercerization.

Mercer while conducting his experiment found enough evidence to suggest that after caustic soda treatment there is a dramatic increase in the absorption level (a good 7.5%-8.5%) of the cotton fibre with all other variables keeping in constant.

The increase affinity in absorption level of the fibre holds true for direct dye-stuffs. This augurs well for the cotton. For dyeing its very important that fibre should have good affinity level with that dye. This affinity was due to Caustic Soda treatment. The cotton in its roving state that is no twist, is more likely to absorb water and dye then it is twisted. The amount of dye/water absorption depends a lot in twist. So you can very well assume that twisted yarn absorbs dye/water proportionally.

Mercerization, not only increase the lustre and dyeing absorption but also increase the strength of the cotton and resistance to mildew (a kind of molds or fungus found in plant)

Ammonia versus Caustic Soda

Mercerization is also done by Ammonia and these days they are done more frequently than the Caustic Soda. The effect of the fabric is different in two cases. The resistance to abrasion tears and tensile is significantly improved in ammonia mercerized cotton. The ammonia mercerized fabric is more softer than caustic soda mercerized fabric. The difference in effect is due to the smaller molecule of ammonia which led it to penetrate the cotton fibre complete than caustic soda. There is a less fibre swelling and fibres are more pliable and allow them to recover the bend more easily.

Nevertheless, it is the great Mercer and gracious Lowe who showed the world how a human intelligence can break the hurdles and create something that allows the textile industry swing with the mood of folks. This piece Celebrate such folks!!

Wide range of Handloom Fabric in Folksmarket.com

Check out our rich and wide collection of handloom fabric and ofcourse our strength in this short video. Handmade Fabric surely are the future fabric. The dominant features of Handloom Fabric are its uniqueness, variations and skin adaptation. The Handloom Fabric literally breathes on air, this is the reason why they are so skin friendly. Folks pay attention!!

The rich collection of handloom fabric is depicted through this video. We purposefully made it short, just 41 seconds. Around 40 different collection of fabric ranging from Cotton, Silk, Cotton-Silk, Linen, Woolen etc have been taken for this video. You can peek through the Folksmarket.com in just 41 seconds. Why to wait further?? Here is the video and enjoy. (Folks if you like it please do not forget to recommend or share it..)

For our B2B clients, we have designed special feature: Add to Enquiry. This feature will allow them to send multiple enquiries in just one click without a single need to remember the information. They can also track the order status at their convenient place and time from My Account Tab. To know more about this feature, read our previous blog Handloom Fabric buyers find it easy with Folksmarket.com

For more information, please log on to www.folksmarket.com

You may wish to write to us folks@folksmarket.com

Handloom Fabric Buyers may find it easier with Folksmarket.com

It is often seen that many B2B clients who are interested in the products and wish to enquire about the same, run through a lot of inconvenience while choosing those products which enticed them.

Problems faced by B2B Fabric Buyers

Most of the websites either have one contact page that asks for detail information like Name, Address, Company Name, Telephone number and a message box every time a product is enquired or the client has to choose for each product one by one, fill in detail and send, again and yet again.

So lets say that if I, as a B2B client, wish to enquire about 10 different fabrics from 4 different sub category, I need to remember the product characteristics, its name going back and forth and then fill in those details followed by the message which may be like “I want to have the sample of Product Code xyz, 200 mtr order of fabric for product code abc, for product code def I have written message as “you said you can produce only 500 mtr in a month, but I am supposed to deliver 500 mtr of finished product in 30 days, how will I be able to work it out?..etc”

The problem faces by the client in such scenario are:

n  Remembering so many product item is such a pain

n  If he clears the hurdle number 1, the next hurdle is remembering the Commercial Specifications that tells about the product capacity, minimum order quantity and expected order time. For 10 products, it look like remembering 30 different piece of information

n  Assuming the user has a sharp memory, he remembers well everything. But again, he needs to fill in the details specific for each product based on its Commercial information.

n  What if suddenly the Boss ask hey Mike, go in for Silk fabric also, we might have a client looking for the best Silk fabrics. Ohh no man, baffled Mike frustrates, ‘how come the boss is so cold to my existing problem of enquiring products. I can’t copy and paste the information because even this exercise I need to do 10 times now 15 times for the same number of different products?? What a pain!!

n  To add to the list of already existing inconveniences, now Silk has a count system different from Cotton and Linen, how the hell am I going to remember the Technical Specifications?

This is a perennial problem faces by almost all the website operating into B2B category. To address such issue, we at Folksmarket.com utilized our tech resource to program in such a way that through one click, any user can enquire for the multiple products.

Uniqueness of www.folksmarket.com

At folksmarket.com, we believe in giving all the information to the client in our website itself that eases out the process. We have divided the fabric section information into 2 parts; Technical Specifications and Commercial Specifications. 

While the Technical Specification educate the client about the Yarn Count, Reed Count, Picks per Inch, Commercial Specifications, on the other hand, indicates what could be the timelines for a specific order to meet. Now with this specific and varied information, it is pertinent for us to develop a system that can allow our prospective clients to enquire for multiple products without the hassle of memorizing any detail. 

Add to Enquiry System of folksmarket.com

Our client can send us the enquiry through two easy yet effective steps:

1-      Sign up first; it just takes around 100 seconds.

2-      Starts browsing through different products/fabrics, read all the details, choose the items he wishes to enquire about and keep on adding there itself without leaving the page!!

The Counter System will keep on informing as to how many products they have added so far. Once they are done with, just click on Send an Enquiry, the next page they will be in, displays all the products list wise. Now just fill in details like Order Quantity, Expected Timeline and any message unique for each product. Once they send it to us, we will be in position to know what kind of demand and product our client is interested in. This facilitates in saving lot of time for our fabric buyers.

My Account

What more, all the enquired products are stored in Buyer’s Account which he can refer any time he wishes to. Now this My Account tab is one of the most convenient post enquiry features of www.folksmarket.com. There is a status bar that shows the status of the work as processing, complete, closed. The text box at the end of Enquiry details let you know about the detailed status of the work and payment details. 

Our aim is to minimize the conversation back and forth between us and client about the work. The client may update himself about the work progress at any hour the day.

Customer first

This Enquiry Adding page is the beta version of our Enquiry system. There are many more features that will be added in Add to Enquiry Section and websites as whole. The objective is to increase the status updating conversation between client and Folksmarket.com team. This however does not mean that we don’t believe in communication! We love to speak with our users and clients but just want to save the inconvenience. 

Our team member from Tech Team, Narendra, deserves special accolades. Keep up good work buddy.

(PS: This piece is not written to denigrate other organizations. Aim is simply to highlight the issue )