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My dwarves seem pretty excited about procreation and I now have a large population of babies and children hanging around the fortress. The problem is that the children are all going mad and throwing tantrums.

I'm fairly certain it's because the babies became children and I didn't have an extra supply of clothes to wear so they're all having unhappy thoughts from being naked.

I queued up a bunch of cloth pants and other clothes only to be met with "Needs 1 unused plant cloth", which I attempted to make via my loom only to be met with "Needs 1 unused collected plant thread". I have been gathering plants like mad to fix this but I must be missing a step because I keep getting the plant thread alert.

What am I missing for keeping my clothes industry going strong?

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In the beginning, it is actually easier to make your clothes out of leather. Just buy a lot of leather from a trading caravan, and use a leather working using a leather workshop to make all the clothes you want or need. Added bonus to this is that the clothes will be slightly more protective to those that wear them. I find doing this gives me sufficent time to actually get my textile and dye making operations up, at which point I can swap over to just making leather items for my military. –  StarPilot Jul 18 '12 at 19:02
IIRC, children's bad thoughts about clothing should be fixed in the latest release; what version are you playing? –  Wooble Jul 31 '12 at 10:50

2 Answers 2

up vote 11 down vote accepted

Taken from my answer here:





After step 3, you finally have the usable cloth item that your clothiers can turn into clothes.

You can substitute Rope Reed in for pig tails if you need to, though they only grow aboveground.

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I'd advise you to die the thread and set your loom to only use dyed thread when you get your dye shop running. It will add value to the cloth, which in turn will make the clothes more valuable. –  StarPilot Jul 18 '12 at 18:57

You need a thresher to process pig tail or rope reed into thread at a farmer's workshop.

PROTIP: dye thread or cloth at a dyer's workshop to improve the value of resulting clothing.

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You're missing the step from thread to cloth. –  Raven Dreamer Jul 12 '12 at 23:11
@RavenDreamer uh, no, OP mentioned the loom already. –  kotekzot Jul 13 '12 at 1:37
Ah, I see why you answered as you did. –  Raven Dreamer Jul 13 '12 at 2:37

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