What's wrong with my clothes industry?

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?

Solution 1:

Taken from my answer here:

The step-by-step guide to turning pig-tails into useable cloth is as follows:

1. Grow pig-tails, or order your herbalists to scrounge the caverns for 'naturally grown' pig-tails.

2. At a Farmer's Workshop (b-w-w), order a dwarf to process plants, turning the raw plant into usable plant threads. This task requires the "Thresher" labor

3. At a Loom (b-w-o), order a dwarf to weave cloth (plant thread). This task requires the "Weaving" labor.

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.

Solution 2:

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.