Chapter 71 Cotton Quilt
In order to test the effect of the machine, she first poured 25 kilograms of cotton into the raw material inlet. Part of the cotton automatically formed the outer gauze, and part of it was turned into the cotton batting. The machine scanned the work like a printer. A green light flashed with each press. After pressing for about twenty times, a quilt was ready.
The quilt that has been pressed and sewn by machine is not only fluffy and evenly distributed, but also has fine and tight seams that are not easy to move.
Su Tai was overjoyed and couldn't wait to use it tonight.
When she placed the quilt and the cotton cloth in front of Shen Yi, even Shen Yi, who thought he had some experience, was no longer calm.
"Xiaotai, this is the quilt and cotton cloth you mentioned?"
Su Tai nodded vigorously, "How is it? Does it feel warm, comfortable and light?"
Shen Yi nodded excitedly, "More than comfortable, I think this cotton cloth is as good as silk, but the color is too white and it gets dirty easily."
This is the only shortcoming Shen Yi can find.
Su Tai sighed, "Silk is white when it is just woven and needs to be dyed. The same goes for cotton, but I really don't know what to use to dye the cloth."
She could find an automatic dyeing machine in the media tool vending machine, which cost 500 coins to rent once. Money was not a problem, but the problem was that she didn't have the raw materials.
Shen Yi looked at the vast mountains, touched his chin and thought: "Let's go to Dahe Town tomorrow. There is a dyeing workshop there. We can ask the dyeing master."
Su Tai was ecstatic and nodded like a chick pecking at rice.
Before going to bed that night, she processed a batch of quilts and thick cotton cloth for winter.
The next day, Chen Yi took her out at dawn.
Because the second aunt's family requisitioned a fishing boat, they were directly sent to the other side of the Daxun River by Chen Zhuang when they arrived at the river.
Chen Zhuang continued to work, while the couple carried the rattan baskets and walked straight towards the Daxun River.
As soon as Su Tai entered the town, she found that the houses here were much better than those in Moshi Town, and the people were dressed more elegantly. It was obvious that they lived a good life.
On the way, Shen Yi also met two or three familiar people who greeted him.
Su Tai teased, "I didn't expect you to be so popular in Dahe Town."
Chen Yi laughed in silence and led her around a few corners into an alley, at the end of which was the dyeing factory.
"Uncle Qi." Shen Yi had a clear goal.
The man named Uncle Qi looked up when he heard the voice and immediately laughed, "Why are you here, kid? To buy cloth?"
Shen Yi introduced: "Uncle Qi, this is my daughter-in-law, her surname is Su, Xiaotai, Uncle Qi is an old man in the dyeing workshop, I used to ask Uncle Qi for help when I got fur."
"Hahaha, you are such a lucky guy!" Uncle Qi looked at Su Tai twice, nodded with satisfaction, and led them into the house for tea.
Shen Yi hurriedly said: “Uncle Qi, I brought my wife here today mainly to ask what can be used as dye.”
Uncle Qi paused while pouring water, looking surprised, "You want to dye the cloth?"
Chen Yi smiled awkwardly and said, "How can I be so capable? It's my wife who wants to ask. Anyway, winter is coming soon and there's nothing else to do, so I just brought her here to broaden her horizons."
Uncle Qi stopped asking questions and sat down to talk carefully: "There are many things that can be used as dyes. For example, madder can be used to extract red dyes; woad and indigo can be used to extract blue dyes; and there is also cinnabar and yellow flower hematoxylin. Different raw materials have different extraction methods. If you want to dye cloth, I suggest you buy dyes directly. It's too much effort to tinker with it yourself."
Su Tai felt dizzy after hearing this. She looked at Shen Yi and decided to spend money to buy the dye.
Dyes are priced based on the scarcity of the raw materials, with red and blue being the most common and cheapest, and the remaining rarer colors becoming more expensive.
Su Tai and Shen Yi just wanted to make it more resistant to dirt, so they bought a large amount of blue, cyan, red and black dyes, and a small amount of yellow and purple, spending twenty taels of silver.
There was enough dye to last them several years.
Then adjust the concentration of the dye to dye the fabric in different shades, which is enough.
On the way back, because there was too much dye, Uncle Qi helped them call an ox cart.
Chen Zhuang came to take them across the river, and when he saw so many sacks, he was confused, "What did you buy?"
Before Shen Yi could speak, Su Tai responded, "Second Uncle, we got some soil and went back to turn the soil."
Chen Zhuang shook his head, totally unable to understand, and only muttered, "This is just because you are full and have nothing better to do!"
Shen Yi laughed in silence.
Chen Zhuang was helpless and said to Chen Yi, "I will take your wife back to Yue's house in a few days. When you have time, go to the mountains to set a trap. If you can catch a pheasant or rabbit, you can bring it back. If not, ask your second aunt to catch a chicken. Anyway, you can't go empty-handed. Wait until the weather warms up next year and then you can raise some chickens yourself."
The custom here is that the bride returns to her parents' home on the eighth or twelfth day after her wedding. Chen Zhuang was afraid that it would snow if they delayed for too long, so he hoped that they would return on the eighth day.
Shen Yi nodded repeatedly, “Uncle, don’t worry, I know what’s going on.”
After the boat docked, Chen Zhuang helped the two load the dye onto the donkey cart.
On the way back, Shen Yi and Su Tai smiled and said, "Although Second Uncle doesn't like to talk on weekdays, he is very nice to us."
Su Tai nodded slightly to show her agreement.
Just now, Shen Ping asked Shen Yi to go home and catch chickens. If he didn’t really love Shen Yi, he would never say such a thing.
"If we are really successful, we can also send two quilts and some clothes to Uncle and Aunt." Su Tai thought.
Chen Yi felt a warm current flowing through his heart, and the look he gave Su Tai became more gentle.
When the couple returned home, Su Tai immediately sent Chen Yi to burn wheat straw and plow the soil to fertilize the field. She then took the dye to the Space-Time Gate Transfer Station, rented an automatic dyeing machine, poured blue dye and a certain proportion of water into it, put cotton cloth in another inlet, and left the rest to chance.
Dyeing cloth requires several steps and repeated immersion dyeing. If it is done purely by hand, it will probably take several days. Machines can greatly shorten this time, but it still takes two days.
During these two days, Su Tai was not idle. She continued to use the loom and quilt press to make another batch of cloth and quilts. At the same time, she also made the lining of cotton coats and trousers, as well as the uppers and soles of cotton shoes according to the body shapes of Shen Yi and others.
Two days later, the first batch of blue cloth was completed.
In order to check the dyeing effect, Su Tai specially asked Chen Yi to wash a piece of cloth. After confirming that it would not fade, the two immediately started making the quilt cover.
"Xiaotai, this material is so comfortable, how about we just replace all the bedding in the house?" Shen Yi couldn't let go of the quilt.
Su Tai thought so too. "No one outsiders would enter our bedroom on weekdays, so it's okay to replace all the quilts with cotton ones. It's best to give them out with one side cotton and the other side linen, so that people won't be curious and ask questions."
Shen Yi thought about it and decided to put another layer of cloth cover on the quilt, sewing it tightly so that even the lining inside would not be discovered.
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