Prospects for Naturally Colour Cotton Blends

Abstract

Naturally coloured cotton is inherently pigmented fibre cultivated in shades of brown and green. These cottons being short in staple length eventually produce coarser yarn that is most suitable for hand- spun, hand woven, coarser and thicker khadi fabrics, that inturn reduces consumer acceptability. To overcome this problem, Naturally coloured cotton can be blended with other natural and synthetic fibres that certainly impart positive qualities like strength, fineness, evenness and reduce the total yarn imperfection. Hence the present study was designed to produce naturally color cotton/ polyester blended yarns of varied counts. Naturally coloured cotton (medium brown-225) and polyester fibre were blended in the proportion of67:33, were mill spun into varied counts viz: 40s, 60s and 2/60s. Control sample (20s mill spun) and blended samples were subjected to various test parameters reveled that, the strength and elongation were inversely related to the yarn count i.e finer the yarn lesser the strength, and coarser the yarn better the elongation. Further, yarn count and twist per inch were directly related i.e. finer the yarn higher the twist per inch of the blended and control samples. Yarn evenness values showed that, blended yarns of different counts were found to be more uniform, even and greater CSP (count, strength for product). Blended fabric with varied count showed lesser colour difference than the control.In the nut shell, blended yarns exhibited better performance than the 1 0 0 % cottons, which can be further suitable for production of better quality textile made-ups viz: shirting, dress material and sarees.