American Sheeting Blossoms at Thomaston Mills
September 11, 2020
Thomaston Mills has been a family owned bedding producer since 1899 and makes its bedding in Thomaston GA. Wide sheeting production has almost ceased to exist in The United States. Even if the sheets are sewn domestically, the fabrics are typically woven overseas, primarily in Pakistan, China and India for mass-produced and in Italy, France and Portugal for luxury bedding.
Our parent company, The Organic Mattress, Inc. has always tried to source our bedding accessories as close to our home as possible. For years, we were thrilled to work with a company in Greenville SC that used to buy organic cotton fiber from Texas, spin them into yarns and then weave sheeting fabric and fabricate the sheets and blankets in Greenville, SC. The company was purchased about five years ago and slowly started to import its yarns, then its fabrics and then finished products from Pakistan. I noticed that their quality has gradually deteriorated, too. What has been of greater concern for me is that the company continues to let many of its retailers and distributors believe that the products are still produced entirely in the States. Consumers who want to support domestic production are being misled along with the retailers buying from them.
I was perusing Instagram a month ago and saw an ad for American made organic cotton sheet sets. I read their website, read customer reviews, saw the two year happiness warranty on the sheet sets and my heart soared. They really are organic, fiber to finished product made in Thomaston GA. with long staple fibers coming from The Organic Texas Cooperative.
I ordered a set of their white percale. The presentation is very nice. They are boxed in recycled cardboard, wrapped in tissue paper, have a postcard signed by employees and include a sample of local tea. I felt connected. I washed them three times. The shrinkage was minimal and there were no signs that the sheets were going to pill. The long staple fiber organic cotton and high twist yarns clearly result in durable 180 thread count sheets that will perform just as sheets that I bought 30 years ago did. Purchasing higher thread count sheets over the past 15 years has still resulted in poorly performing sheets because the fibers are shorter and most of the fabrics quickly pilled as well as shedded heavily in the dryer, reducing them to wilted, thin sheets. Thomaston's produced very little lint and the hand improved with each wash. The sheets do wrinkle. They don't have toxic treatments to prevent wrinkling. So, they breathe! After making the bed, the wrinkles are minimal. These sheets come with a two year "happiness guarantee" which I appreciate since some of my high thread count sheet sets have not lasted nearly as long.
I took the following and copied it from the mill's website. They said it best regarding thread count. We have been manipulated by the industry to equate quality with high thread count without regard to the other factors and trickery.
Thread count is the number of vertical and horizontal threads per square inch. Not long ago sheets had thread counts of 120, 140 and 180. A thread count of 180 was considered the most luxurious. Many imported sheets have manipulated and untrue thread counts. Today, thread counts are artificially inflated because manufacturers use multi ply yarn instead of good quality traditional single ply yarn. Multi-ply construction is often used to strengthen lower grade short fiber cotton so a super high thread count can actually indicate a lower quality, weaker fabric with thicker, coarser and heavier yarn that will pop out and pill. Higher thread count does not guarantee higher quality sheets. Thomaston Mills developed a custom fabric which is approximately 180 threads per square inch.
I now see 100% polyester microfiber sheet sets boasting their 1000 tc! I see"virgin polyester" on some sheet sets. It is hysterical and incredibly misleading.
I am enamored with these sheets and I wax nostalgia for my childhood memories that I have for sheets. Now, if I could hang them on an outdoor clothesline to dry then that would smell like traveling back in time.
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