What a process house does

Cloth comes off the loom as greige (also called grey) fabric: undyed, stiff with size, and carrying dust, oil and loose fiber. A process house turns it into finished fabric. It inspects the greige. It burns off surface fiber (singeing), washes out the size, a starch-like coating on the warp yarn (desizing), cleans out natural waxes and dirt (scouring) and whitens the cloth (bleaching). Cotton is treated with caustic soda for luster and better dye pickup (mercerising), and polyester is set with heat so it keeps its size. Then the process house dyes or prints the cloth, applies finishes, pulls it to the right width on a stenter, inspects it again and packs it. Benny Cotts weaves in-house at Village Atoon and sends the greige to partnered Bhilwara process houses for all of these steps.