how many plants to make a yard of fabric?

Hi all, I was born and grew up in Fresno, CA. I also was a cotton picker. It is not an easy job. No telling what critters you might find, and the cotton is hard to get off the boll. The bags you put them in are HUGH and cotton by itself doesn't weight much, takes a lot of cotton balls to fill a bag. Glad I don't do that anymore. Just like to play with the finished product. Happy quilting all. BrendaK

great pictures~ thanks for sharing

I just came from a visit to my grandmother's town, where the cotton gin was hoppin' and the roads were lined with white fluff! I eyed the stuff with new interest as a quilter and wondered how many yards of quilting cotton might come from a bale of cotton (these bales were huge rectangles)!

I was wondering these days, too, what happens to the "scrap" cotton left after the pickers have picked? Anyone know? I know it wouldn't have been wasted in my Gran's time.

I use to grade the cotton in Arkansas, would do it from Sept. to Dec. then we move to Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama or Georgia to grade their cotton, then on to Califorinia. The cotton is very different in Calif. we had to go to a different school to learn to grade their cotton.. They cut a piece out of the big bales in the field and we grade the piece and let the farmer know how much it is worth..then a buyer will get in touch with the farmer and they hackle over the price..this is all done thru the federal government, we would work 10 days stright, before a day off and had 3 shifts running during the peak season.
I think this is the longest reply I have every typed. LOL

neat Barb

I've never seen the cotton in the field, I've seen the fields after they have been picked however and I have never seen the bales so thanks for sharing these pictures. Very interesting.

The cotton left in the fields are plowed under, in the days of hand picking, you wouldn,t see that much cotton left in the field..The machines only go so deep to the ground and can't pick the lower branches, does that make sense? This year in Alabama the cotton didn't grow tall, so the farmers lost alot of crop.

Also the worest grade of cotton makes blue jeans LOL

Very interesting...and so are all of your cotton stories.

Been there, done that on the cotton pickin and chopping. Hated it, but thankful for the hard work that made me what I am today.