There is a very important process for selecting cotton seeds to be processed into cotton thread and even cotton wool for making bedding, that is, playing cotton.

Playing cotton is a craft and a skill, and later some people wrote songs to make fun of it:

Play cotton, play cotton

Half a pound of cotton is bounced into eight, two, eight

The old cotton has become new cotton

After playing the quilt, the girl is going to get married

Ouch Le Yo Le Ouch Ouch Le Yo Ler

After playing the quilt, the girl is going to get married

The girl is going to get married

Elastic cotton, elastic cotton

Half a pound of cotton pops out of eight two eight

The old cotton has become new cotton

After playing the quilt, the girl is going to get married

Play cotton, play cotton

Half a pound of cotton is bounced into eight, two, eight

The old cotton has become new cotton

After playing the quilt, the girl is going to get married

Ouch Le Yo Le Ouch Ouch Le Yo Ler

After playing the quilt, the girl is going to get married

The girl is going to get married

Elastic cotton, elastic cotton,

Half a pound of cotton is bounced into eight two eight,

Old cotton has become new cotton,

After playing the quilt, the girl is going to get married.

Elastic cotton, elastic cotton,

Half a pound of cotton is bounced into eight two eight,

Old cotton has become new cotton,

After playing the quilt, the girl is going to get married.

Elastic cotton, elastic cotton,

Half a pound of cotton is bounced into eight two eight,

Old cotton springs into new cotton,

Not to play or old cotton.

A-Ying, A-Ying, where are you?

Always worry about you,

A-Ying, A-Ying, come on!

A-Ying, A-Ying, come on!

You will not believe that the craft of playing cotton in Chengdu Mansion was invented by Liu Minniang, but before Liu Minniang came to Cypress Village, there were really no craftsmen in Chengdu Mansion who played cotton.

Since Liu Minniang's first use of the process of bowstring playing cotton in the cypress forest, even in the 21st century; Whether it is a town or a village, the figure of the flower maker can be seen repeatedly.

If you have the opportunity to wander around the rural market, the lively big set interface; You can hear the musical sound of the gardener's bowstring.

Those who gather in a circle to probe their brains and look at it do not know whether they admire this ancient craft or are attracted by the bowstring that can play music in the hands of the florist.

The author of the song of playing cotton must have been intoxicated by the artistic conception of the gardener, which resembles the musical sense of mountains and flowing water, to write such a very dynamic and ridiculous ballad.

China's cotton probably originated in the Yuan Dynasty, that is to say, there was no cotton before the Yuan Dynasty; Then when Liu Minniang was in the cypress forest, she was in the Kaibao period of Song Taizu, at least it should be said that she was the originator of cotton in the Lingquan area.

The tools for playing cotton are relatively simple, with a bow, a wooden hammer, a grinding disc, a shovel head, and a strip of yarn to make up all the belongings; Largely unchanged over the millennia.

The curved bow of the playmaker is the most elaborate in making, and the south is made of bamboo chips; In the north, it is usually made of naturally bent trees or specialized wood.

The bowstrings are made of beef tendons, which are strong and elastic.

When working, the woodmaker should fix a wooden stick two or three feet above his head at the waist; It is used to hang wooden bows, but also to save effort safely.

When playing cotton, bury the bowstring in the cotton and strike the bowstring with a wooden hammer; The bowstrings bounced and jumped in the cotton of the white forest, making a "boom-boom-boom" sound, and with this rattling music; Cotton dances around the bowstrings, and music and dance merge into a melodious melody that spreads everywhere.

The old clichés, which were originally made of new cotton and porcelain, gradually became soft in the music of the bowstring dance.

After the cotton elastic is soft, it is wrapped in white gauze, and it also needs to be evenly smoothed layer by layer; This technology is more sophisticated.

The smoothed cotton becomes cotton wool, and the height and thickness must be consistent; Otherwise, the futon will be uncomfortable to cover.

The tool used to press cotton is called a grinding disc, which is a disc made of wood; This process is very time-consuming, and it takes an hour or two to do it well.

As for the ballad of playing cotton, "half a catty of cotton is played into eight taels and eight", this is because half a catty is equal to eight taels in the old system; After being bounced, the cotton became soft and much larger than before; It looks heavier than before, but it's the same weight.

Later, machinery rose, although there were still flower makers who walked the streets and alleys; But most of them have been replaced by machines, and an ancient trade in the land of China is disappearing.

After Liu Minniang personally instructed the craftsmen to build the bowstring for playing cotton, it was displayed in the main square of Jixian Temple; The master of Chengdu Mansion who made Shu brocade also came to watch.

But Liu Min's mother is teaching the women of the cypress forest to spin and weave.

There are ten hand-spinning wheels on the large square in front of the Daxiong Treasure Hall of Jixian Temple, and there are two handlooms in the middle; In front of the spinning wheel and loom sat a woman in the cypress forest and some interested men, as well as Xiangyun Nunnery, Jingxu Shitai and a dozen nuns, and even people from some villages in Luodai and Shuangliu also rushed to Jixian Temple to learn spinning and weaving skills from Liu Minniang.

After Huo Renfu and Liu Minniang taught spinning and weaving on the spot, he not only rushed to Qiyang County in the Guanzhong Plain with Liu Er, Buffalo, Ba Si, and Xu Hu to buy 500 catties of cotton, but also asked Donkey Touyan Chen Carpenter to add a few more hand-spinning wheels on the basis of the original one; Two more looms were built.

In this way, Liu Minniang personally integrated spinning and weaving together to demonstrate and teach.

Liu Minniang's demonstration of spinning and weaving has the following four processes.

The first process is to roll the twists. It is to use a cotton pad to roll the soft cotton into small cotton strips as thin as fingers for later use.

The second process is spinning. Pull out a thread from one end of the cotton sliver that is kneading to the thickness of a finger and fix it on the inverted spool of the spinning wheel, then shake the spinning wheel with the right hand, and shake the spinning wheel with the left hand; Pinch the tampon and pull it back and forth; In this way, the slivers are spun into cotton threads and wound around the hub wheels.

The third process is wire pulling. Drawing is the process of pulling the spun cotton thread into warp yarns, first nailing a few wooden stakes in the yard according to the length of the woven cloth; Two nails on one side and one on the other; The ten balls are then threaded separately on the ten rolling shafts of the wire puller.

When drawing the yarn, the left hand holds the wire tie machine and walks back and forth between the wooden stakes on both sides, and the thread is layered on the wooden stake; The width of the weave is required to determine the number of layers of the yarn.

After the thread is drawn, it is combed and each thread is threaded on the reed; Finally, the thread that has passed through the reed is neatly wrapped around the wrapping tube.

The fourth process is weaving. Before weaving, the thread, wrapping cylinder, reed and various parts of the loom are connected and installed.

When weaving, the weaver sits at the front of the loom, and the pedal rotates with both feet to control the separation and closing of the upper and lower layers of warp; According to the division and combination of the upper and lower layers of warp yarns, both hands throw the shuttle left and right, carry out weft weaving, and pull the reed frame in turn with the left and right hands, and tie the woven weft yarn tightly to ensure the density of the cloth.

After the cloth is woven, the next process is dip dyeing, dip dyeing according to your hobby.

The cloth made in this way is called homespun cloth, and the homespun cloth is thick and strong; Its color is blue with green, green and red, and has a unique style.

All kinds of clothes, trousers, skirts, aprons, streamers, laces, flower shoes and other products made of homespun cloth are simple and elegant, generous and generous, with many patterns, there are wicker, lattice, bucket pattern, twill and so on have a very high artistic standard.

Liu Min's mother's demonstration and teaching made the emerging craft of spinning and weaving become popular in Chengdu Prefecture; It's a pity that Liu Minniang got an incurable disease and left Liu Min, who was still ignorant, to die......