Bitten by the COTTON BUG!

I shared my blog with a friend, explaining why I haven't been quilting much lately was because I've gotten obsessed with cotton. After reading my previous updates her reply was, "You've been bitten by the COTTON BUG for sure!"

I can't help chuckle out loud because there is an actual cotton bug!!! It's a boll weevil...

Photo from The Weevil Times, Boll Weevil song

This creature can cause quite a bit of trouble for a cotton farmer. It's a beetle that feeds on cotton buds and flowers. Around the 1920s the boll weevil had infested all southern cotton farms. Efforts were made to eradicate the bug but it's still quite pesky today. You can read more from Wikipedia on Boll Weevils.

On our most recent trip to visit my MIL in Florida, I would periodically check Google to see what interesting facts I could find out about the area we were driving through. (Truth be told, I was looking for yarn shops. Particularly, yarn shops that carry spinning supplies. 🤗)

When we were near Ozark, AL, Google informed me that we were close to a historical monument.... the only monument to ever be erected in honor of a pesky insect, the Boll Weevil!!!

Photo from atlasobscura.com

Monument in Enterprise, AL dedicated to the boll weevil. The story is quite interesting! It seems around 1915, the boll weevils were so bad that the farmers around Enterprise, AL were inspired to grow peanut crops instead of cotton. The effort paid off. The town prospered and by 1917, Coffee County (Enterprise's county) was the leading producer of peanuts in the entire country.   

But the monument was 20 minutes off our route so we didn't go see it in person. I suppose it's not really that far off route, but when traveling 9 hrs with 3 others and a dog, adding another 40 minutes driving is a lot. Besides, I had to save my stopping requests for yarn shops!!

And so my Cotton Education Adventure continues 😄....

Now I feel I've almost come full circle. What brought about this adventure was a desire to try my hand at spinning cotton. In the first post, Cotton Education Adventure: the fields (part 1), I introduced my friend, Karen Arzemendi, who has been on this adventure with me. She was already sending texts YouTube links to me on how to spin cotton just minutes after leaving the fields with our bags of cotton. It's pretty awesome to have a friend that is exactly my kind of crazy 😆.

I was determined to keep focused on Beholder's Beauty because the deadline was approaching quickly. But during breaks from quilting I looked for my spinning supplies to display on our cotton table at the MQA Fall Gathering. To my dismay, my supplies seemed to been temporarily "put away" into storage when we moved into this house.... (Translates to I have no idea which box they are in. It's going to take more time than I have right now to find it.)

Being unable to locate my spindles was really a blessing in disguise. I searched the web and found The Woolery. I looked through all the spindles, I counted 25+ brands, each with several sizes. I was sure I had found the perfect one for cotton... The company called me a few days later to let me know the item was on back order. I explained what I wanted in hopes they could substitute with something just as appropriate. Good thing I had to talk with them, I had the wrong type of spindle anyway!!
My order arrived just a few days later... a cotton seed flicker for preparing the cotton so I can spin it straight off the seed. And a Tahkli low whorl spindle. I was surprised how tiny it felt in my hands.
November 7...

Of course I had to try it out immediately....

One seed yielded just over a yard of fine single-ply thread for me.

Eight seeds... Very slow going. Definitely not like spinning wool fibers. I struggled with breakage due to not enough twist and struggled on the flip side with too much twist. Only time and practice is going make this easier.

I really like being able to spin right off the seed. The seed flicker is very easy to use and is perfect for loosening the fibers. The down side is that I can only prepare a few at a time. The cotton clings to itself, making stacking prepared seeds tangle too much.

Seventy-three seeds later.... Nov 9

... made an approx 17 yard 3ply skein. I haven't determined what size the yarn is yet. It's slightly thicker than crochet cotton, possibly lace weight..

Then I started counting seeds, trying to get 100 seeds per spindle full... Nov. 15

To date, Dec. 20, I've spun over 500 seeds.

The small cotton pile on the right is approx 100 seeds...

...Out of 2 bursting grocery bags full... This is going to take a while!! 😄

Much thanks to Julia Graber!! 

My Sweeting (14 year old daughter) helped me with pictures. 

I wonder what I should make with my yarn???

My Cotton Education Adventures:
Part one: The Fields
Part two: The Combine
Part three: The Cotton Gin

Cotton Education Adventure: The Cotton Gin

A panoramic view behind the cotton gin building. Hundreds of bales straight from the field waiting to be processed.

The Bogue Chitto Cotten Gin!!

I'm finally getting around to composing this blog update. I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to write it up, especially since I've had the pictures loaded in the draft mode since a day or two after our visit. 

.....actually, I probably do know why... I allowed myself to get distracted... 

And now it's time to get it done...

This is the third update in my journey learning about cotton. 

Cotton Education Adventure part 1 is about the fields.

Cotton Education Adventure part 2 is about the harvesting with combines.

In late October I was invited to tour the Bogue Chitto Cotton Gin. 

Bogue Chitto means Big Creek in the Choctaw language. And I was told the Bogue Chitto river runs near by. 

This cotton gin is run by 20+ workers around the clock during the season. The season runs about 3 months. They have to process the cotton quickly because it's sitting on the ground and will get ruined if it gets too damp.

In off season, there are still about 5 workers maintaining the buildings and equipment. 

The Bogue Chitto Gin is about 4 years old. It is kept very clean, as cotton is very flammable!!

Driving up to the gin there's a good view of rows and rows of bales of cotton. This photo is actually a view from behind the gin. The view is pretty much the same on all sides of the building, hundreds of bales waiting to be processed, it's no wonder the gin runs 24/7! The ends are marked to identify which farmer the bale belongs to.

We saw a steady stream of truck loads delivered during our visit. (We also learned to be careful walking to our cars as the trucks are not used to pedestrians around!)

The beginning of the ginning process... The cotton will be sent through a dehumidifier to dry the "lint" but not the seed. And sent through two cleaners to remove dirt, twigs and leaves.

 

There are two machines doing the actual ginning (removing the seed from the cotton). It has saw-like blades that catch the lint and allow the seeds to fall through... To the left of these machines is a recycler that catches the bolls that slip through and send them right back to be ginned again.

In this photo you can see just how clean the cotton gin is kept!

After the cotton is ginned it's sent through a humidifier to re-hydrate the lint to a certain percentage. I didn't seem to get a picture of that machine as it was in the far corner. I found it fascinating that one of the first steps was to dehydrate just to re-hydrate later!

The noise from all of these machines running is deafening!

The cotton lint is pressed into a bale and wrapped with strong plastic straps.

The bales are 500 lbs each.

Then it moves through the next machine that wraps it with plastic and it's tagged with the owners name and ready to be sent to the warehouse.

So, what was very interesting to hear was that there is no money exchanged between farmer and the cotton gin! The farmer delivers the bales to be ginned, the cotton gin processes it and sends it to the warehouse to be sold. As payment the cotton gin gets to keep the cotton seeds! The seeds are sold for various purposes like cattle feed, cotton seed oil, or next years crops!

The seeds are piped in from the cotton gin, falling to the ground from the top of the roof making a huge mountain of seeds!!

NOTHING goes to waste! This is the "trash" pile behind the building. It's all the twigs, leaves, dirt and stuff that had been removed from the cotton. The gin also sells this as compost. 

And why am I so fascinated with cotton? 

.... Because quilters LOVE 100% cotton fabrics!! (disclaimer: I know there are some exceptions, nothing wrong with using other fibers! That's a different story :p).

 ..... Because so much of American history and Southern history revolves around cotton. 

..... probably, mostly because I love that fabric can be made from a single seed!!! That's truly amazing!!

Karen Arzemendi and I set up a cotton display at the MQA Fall Gathering hosted by our PTQ guild.
special thanks to my daughter for making us a display board :). 

My Mississippi Autumn.

Every season in Mississippi is beautiful. Temperatures are plunging to freezing. I left my potted plants out just a little too long and this morning I saw they froze last night. RIP my impatients. I'm not sharing a photo because it's just too sad. 

But the autumn colors are nearly everywhere. There are a variety of deciduous trees in my yard. So far I've identified Sweetgum, Oak, Crepe Myrtle, and Hickory. There's also a wisteria vine over the pergola in the backyard and various bushes. I LOVE the natural setting of my yard!

I am fascinated with the different shapes of leaves. I find joy in the various ways I find them resting on my windshield in the morning....

The house I grew up in didn't have many trees. I don't ever remember having to rake up leaves. (Of course, it would have been a chore delegated to my brothers so I wouldn't remember doing it anyway. Heh, being the baby of eight and a girl born after six boys, somehow there were a lot of chores I wasn't allowed to do. I'm not complaining now!!) 

My mom and dad still live in the house I grew up in. My dad has done wonders in the yard. What used to be a field of only weeds and stickers, has yielded strawberries, Indian corn, numerous irises, sunflowers, and rose bushes under my dad's care. He also had a cactus rock garden for a bit until one of the grand-babies fell into it, then it was removed. 

Now, there are many trees strategically placed around the house to provide shade. Trees that weren't there when I was young and longing for a pile of autumn leaves to dive into, bathe in, and thrash around like a wild child... 

.......

Fast forward to today.....

I have no shortage of leaves to make piles!! But I no longer desire to dive in. I am too aware of the little creepy crawlies that take refuge. Instead, I desire to remove ALL fallen leaves from my yard!! 

It's too big of a chore to do in one go. So I set a goal of filling 5 yard bags twice a week, sometimes it's more, sometimes I skip a week... lol, it's good to be me!! However, at this rate the job is never going to be done....

I discovered Spider Lilies or Naked Ladies at the house we previously rented. Seems there is a difference between a Spider Lily which is red and a Naked Lady which is pink. When we were at the other house, I dug up and seperated clusters of Spider Lily bulbs. I replanted 50 bulbs around the house. I wonder if they pleasantly surprised the new owners when the magically popped up out of the ground the next year.  

I brought a few of the bulbs with me to the new house. This November marks the end of the second year we've been living here. There was no sign of the lilies last year, but I am pleased to see them popping up this year. I'm thinking there may not be any flowers from them this year though. Seems like the flower stalk was the first to pop up before the leaves... But I am tickled that they have already multiplied!! Each spot that I placed one bulb has at least 3 plants emerging!! That's so exciting to me :). It's simply miraculous!

I took my daughter for a haircut at the Brickerton Shopping mall here in Columbus, MS. and spotted these flowers blooming. It's almost mid-December!! It amazes me that a delicate looking rose could survive in these cooler temperatures. I might have to find out exactly what this plant is. However, it looks like something the many deer around my house would love to eat. 

As you can see, I continue to be enamored with Mississippi. I am loving the simplest things. I was thinking of the falling leaves as a Love Hate relationship, love the fall/hate the clean up. Then come to realize that I actually enjoy the clean up too! I'm reminded of longing for piles of leaves to run through. ohhh! I didn't mention the woodsy, cedar smell from the leaves as I gather them up!! I love it!! 

Cotton education adventures cont.: the Combine

Mississippi has very hot summer days. Moving from cool rainy Seattle to sweltering heat made our first summer here almost unbearable for me. The kids and I arrived ready to start our Mississippi lives right smack in the hottest days of summer in 2014. To add to our discomfort, the AC in our rental home was broken.... lol, I can laugh about it now ;)!

Since I mention the first summer, I might as well talk a little bit about the first winter.  It wasn't until around the second week in January that I went looking for the box our heavy winter coats were packed in. The ladies at Maple Street charity quilting would comment in wonder how I could still be wearing short pants and sleeveless shirts well into December... That was the first year... 

But with such a drastic change in temperature, getting acclimated happens quickly! The next summer, though it still required living mostly indoors with AC, was much more bearable. And this year I saw more of the outdoors and even enjoyed working in the yard early in the mornings (but also experienced more of the blood sucking insects that summer brings :(... not a pleasant experience at all!! I did considered getting stock in Deep Woods insect repellent spray!) 

It's mid November now and the cool mornings have us putting an extra layer of clothing on.  I think we are fully acclimated to Mississippi weather, lol :).

But back to the cotton. 

Despite the heat, Mississippi summer days are gorgeous!! I love that beautiful blue sky in all my pics. The clouds on this day seemed to have been provided just for us. A perfect field of fluffy clouds to go with the field of fluffy white cotton. 

In my previous blog post, Cotton Education...: the fields, I tried to express how very fortunate I have been to meet some wonderful women through quilting. It's amazing that with all the diverse lifestyles we connect through our love of quilting. I am truly blessed to have found such a wonderful group.

Julia Graber graciously continued our cotton education. I got a text one morning that she had a cousin visiting from WA for a week. That even though the fields weren't quite ready yet, she was taking her cousins out to the fields to show how they pick the cotton, and wanted to invite me and Karen along. 

The ideal spacing for cotton is 30 inches apart.
These fields are planted in skip rows, meaning 2 rows together then a space.
I think it's for a higher yield and maybe easier maintaining.

By the time I arrived at the field the cousins were already taking a ride. The combines are quite impressive machines. 

A module is finished and ready to drop off the back side.

It's already started the next module.

.....and MASSIVE!

I'm already two ladder steps up. When I stand on the ground the tires stand higher than my head!

LOL, I was just like a little girl, I saw more ladders and I had to climb all the way to the top :).

Julia's son explained all the workings. How the cotton is picked. How the combine senses how much and wraps each bale. How the bale is rolled up and dropped out the back. That the yellow wrapper cost about $35 each so they make sure to make full bales. He answered question after question. I'm sorry, I don't remember much of the technical information. My emotions were in overdrive. I'm not sure why... I hadn't wanted to ride the combine, rather was happy with just watching it work. But Julia persisted and convinced me to experience it. I am so grateful she insisted <3!!
Thank goodness for google :)... National Cotton Council of America has a great page of Frequently asked questions!

The combine is a two seater...

...Karen and I had to balance ourselves and snuggle on the passenger seat.

Looking down from inside the combine.
The combine was adjusted for the row spacing. It's so perfectly aligned!

A yellow wrapped cotton module holds about 13 - 15 bales of cotton. It is very tightly packed. I hope Karen doesn't mind me using her picture :p.
You can sort of see some cotton is left behind. This is what Karen and I had hoped to glean when we first inquired about the cotton.


Julia was going to take her cousins to the cotton gin right after this. The gin is only a 10 minute drive from here. We were invited to go along. My schedule prevented me form continuing on this day. The MQA Fall Gathering was fast approaching and I still needed to finish Beholder's Beauty. Somehow, in the excitement of the moment, Karen suddenly thought to arrange a cotton table at the MQA meeting. She would like to start a fiber arts group and this could generate interest.
LOL, I was a bit noncommittal at this time :p. My mind was only on Beholder's Beauty! But once I was home and as I continued to stitch racing the clock, I started to embrace the cotton table idea. Planning in my head what items I could bring and which pics to print for the display board.

Not too bad for a quick display!! I even demoed a little bit of my spinning talents during the meeting. And quickly learned spinning cotton is definitely not same as spinning wool. I still have some learning to do. Still, I'm proud of what we set up!

Ok, enough for today, the next part of my Cotton Education Adventure will be the Cotton Gin! Hope to see you soon!