Thursday, March 17, 2011

Every so often there are real milestone moments for our business and yesterday provided one of them. I went down to the mill in Fife that we work with to make our linens to see our first woven linen ticking and ginghams on the loom. It was just amazing to see the fabrics that we have worked on for the months and months, choosing yarns, dying yarns, finalising patterns, actually coming into being. The quality of this fabric really has to be felt and seen to be believed. It genuinely doesn't get any better than this. It feels really good to be part of this process.

This image shows Angus at the mill showing me how they pick up a broken warp thread. Just look at all those metal droppers - each one has to be threaded by hand to set up the loom - and then if one breaks, it has to be found and reknotted before the loom can set off again.

This is a roll with the warp threads for our new navy gingham waiting to go - they will be attached to the ecru gingham that is currently being woven so that the blue follows straight on from the ecru.

Here you can see the back end of the loom with all the warp threads of the ecru gingham.

And this is the finished fabric coming off the loom - just wonderful!

Once they've been woven, the linens then go to be 'finished'. This softens and slightly shrinks the linens, and gives them the 'antique' feel that we are always striving for at Twice.

These new linens will be available in our new catalogue which should go out at the end of April. I cannot wait to see what they look like when they're used. Very exciting days.