Abstract: A process for making a textile from a feedstock comprising a quantity of post-consumer apparel, each item of apparel having a desired textile composition and devoid of non-textile materials, including shredding the feedstock to obtain textile shreds, providing the textile shreds as a component in at least a first layer of a plurality of stacked layers comprising at least a second layer of supporting material, and feeding the plurality of stacked layers through a needle-felting machine in a plurality of passes, including at least one pass in each of a plurality of different 90-degree offset orientations. The textile shreds, or a mixture of the textile shreds and new textile fibers comprising no more than 15%-20% new textile fibers, may be carded with a carding machine to form a batting. Products made by the process may include a 100% cotton mulch mat for agricultural use.

Abstract: Conductive thread stitched stretch sensors are described. The conductive thread stitched stretch sensors include a textile configured to stretch in at least one dimension and a conductive thread having a resistance between a first point and a second point stitched to the textile in a stitch geometry, the stitch geometry configured to stretch the conductive thread as the textile is stretched in the at least one dimension such that the resistance of the conductive thread increases between the first point and the second point due to elongation of the conductive thread as the textile is stretched. Also described are garments including conductive thread stitched stretch sensors and methods for making such sensors.