Underground Journal

Three Steps To Growing Luxury Bedding

There are three basic steps to growing luxury bedding. What’s that? Impossible you say? Not when you consider that almost all this type of bedding comes from a living, growing thing. That is just a mind-blowing concept isn’t it? Not when one considers how many things in our daily lives are made from living things (like your chair – its likely made out of wood). Same with your bedding – the fabrics that is.

Now some fabrics do not come from living sources, by definition; nylon, polyester and others. Let’s have a look at the three most well-known types of grown fabrics used for the bedding application; cotton, linen and silk. Linen is probably the most definitive of all of these fabrics in this use – who hasn’t heard of the old term “bed linens”. Like, “It’s time to change the bed linens.” You have heard of phrases like that.

Well, linen is a very old fabric made from the flax plant. Even the ancient peoples were aware of the flax plant and made linen fabric from it. They even used it in the burial of their dead. But making linen from flax requires a great deal of labor – which is mainly why it is expensive and therefore considered a luxury. To obtain the best and longest flax fibers, the plants must be harvested by hand. The fibers are typically removed from the plant stalks in a series of processes and then spun into a yarn. The yarn is then knit or woven. Further work requires bleaching and/or dyeing of the fabric.

Probably just as ancient is the cotton plant – from which humanity derives all its common. Indeed, about 90% of all cotton is derived from a single species. The cotton plant has some strengths and weaknesses. It is resistant to salt and aridity. Yet, it must be protected from frost and pests. For millennia – even until recent times – cotton had to be harvested by hand. Machines are now fulfilling that function today. Unlike flax, the cotton bolls are harvested – sometimes with the seeds – not the stalks. The fabric must then be processed in a variety of ways to produce thread and fabric. The fabric must then go through further processing.

The last “living fabric” does not really come from a plant – silk. Except that silk is produced by an insect that lives off a specific plant or plants – the silkworm. The silkworm is actually a moth that has since been domesticated by man. The domesticated silkworm now produces most all silk in use today. These are just three very basic – yet complicated – steps to growing luxury bedding.

Looking for more information? Visit MyLuxuryBedding.org

(0) Comments Permalink