Why does ice stick to cotton?

It’s easy to make ice stick to cotton, but something special must happen. There must be a little water to wet the cotton. This may come from the surface of an ice cube where it is melted just a little by warmer air. And the ice cube, maybe right out of the freezer, must be at a temperature below freezing.

If both of those things happen, then the ice cube freezes the water that wets the cotton. So the cotton sticks because it is frozen right to the ice cube.