STAR ON TV WITH KNITTED CURTAINS

Monarch machines provide knitted curtains for popular BBC show.

Millions of British TV viewers will have seen knitted curtains designed by a top UK interior designer, and produced by Monarch UK, draped in a house on the BBC's 'Home Front Inside Out' programme recently broadcast.

The Leicester, UK, based circular machine manufacturer took up the challenge thrown down by the BBC after a call to our editorial office when the broadcaster wanted some knitted curtains for an episode of its forthcoming popular TV show.

Geraint Davies from BBC's 'Home Front Inside Out' asked Knitting International earlier this summer, "the BBC wants to speak to a UK manufacturer which could supply is with some knitted curtains, one of British TV's top interior fashion designers, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, is insisting that the curtains which will feature in our 'Home Front Inside Out' programmes, scheduled to be broadcast in October 2000, should definitely be knitted and not woven.  Unfortunately we cannot find knitted curtains anywhere and we need your help."

At our suggestion, the BBC immediately contacted Mr David Brunton at Monarch Knitting Machinery Corp., UK, to see if the Leicester based circular knitting machine suppliers knew of any local manufacturers who were producing knitted curtains.

From previous conversations with Monarch, we knew that the company was selling machines into fabric manufacturers who were heavily into knitted household textiles.  And common sense told us there was a very good chance they could put the BBC in contact with the right company.

Flamboyant Designer
However, it was soon clear that the BBC wanted the knitted curtains almost immediately, and because Monarch has its own in-house team of designers, it was decided that Monarch would itself design, knit, finish and even make up the curtains for the BBC in order to save time. 

Initially, Monarch were not given much to work on.  The brief that the company received from Mr Llewelyn-Bowen was that he wanted a fashionable, contemporary coarse gauge knitted curtain that could be used in front of a large patio window.  He provided a drawing of the room to Monarch, and said that the fabric needed to be coarse knitted to allow for the penetration of some sunlight, but it also had to be light and fluid so as to drape effectively, the only other consideration was that the fabric should have a horizontal striping effect, and that the curtain pole would be made from copper piping.

With curtains being largely the preserve of the woven fabrics industry, the Monarch team had to completely rethink how they could present a knitted product that would exhibit the stable properties of woven curtains, but would give the look and feel of a traditional knitted fabric.  Double jersey seemed the obvious solution. 

Once the basic fabric type was decided upon, Monarch was quick to utilise its own experienced team of in-house designers to come up with numerous fabric sample designed with Monarch's MKS software and knitted on its own double jersey machines.  These samples ranged from fabrics based on coarse gauge knitwear to much more intricate designs in finer gauges.

After much discussion between Monarch, Mr Llewelyn-Bowen, and the BBC design teams, it was decided that they would use a 7 gauge light green on white 2X1 inch stripe, knitted in 100 per cent 2/23 cotton.  Mr Llewelyn-Bowen, was also said to be impressed by some of the other fabrics produced by Monarch, and he has already earmarked a reversible quilt knitted by Monarch for another TV show called 'Fantasy Rooms', which will be aired sometime next year.

Filming at Beaumont Leys.
After the final decision on which fabric sample to use, events started to speed up.  In fact, as Monarch were knitting the curtains, a call from the BBC informed the company that a film crew was on its way to film the knitting process.  Within the hour, BBC cameras were outside Monarch's Boston Road premises and filming started soon afterwards.

As the cameras were rolling, fabric for the curtains was being produced on Monarch's V-LEC-CNY 33ins x 7G.

Monarch's LEC-CNY is a fully computerised, double jersey, electronic jacquard machine with 4-colour auto striping facilities.  Available in 7-12G, this model features a four raceway swing cam system for 3-position selection on the dial.  This provides increased versatility and fabric design potential, whereby knit, tuck, welt and support (for blister) positions can be easily chosen without exchanging cams.  The cylinder camming offers 2-position (knit and welt). By rotation of an adjust rod, tuck and welt are also possible.

After filming the knitting process, camera crew turned their attention to Monarch's Design and Development Department where the fabric design was carried out on Monarch's MKS software.

The Department itself houses a wide suite of state of the art technology capable of simulating the finished product within a backcloth of realism.  For example, apparel and household fabrics such as upholstery, bedding and throwovers can be colour matched to the yarns and visualised in room setting prior to knitting, providing customers with the personal service as well as reducing development cost substantially.  Because of the time scale for the curtain fabric, various colourways from the yarns in stock were simulated on the computer screen and compared to the upholstery fabric supplied to the designers by the BBC.  These were then submitted to the BBC for final selection within a day.  The Design team have all worked in the fabric and garment manufacturing sector of the Textile Industry in the past and appreciate the need to present work in a format that is a near to the finished product as possible.

After knitting, the fabric was finished off by local company Eversmart who are specialist dyers and finishers based in Leicester, and because of the short time-scale for production of the fabric, the curtains were actually made up at Monarch by Pam Burgess, who is part of the design team.

So, within 3-4days of the initial decision by Mr Llewelyn-Bowen to use a 7 gauge 2X1 striped fabric, Monarch had knitted and produced the curtains from scratch and despatched them to the BBC.

Gordon Whistance, BBC's art director, commented, "The look and fit of the curtains was great, and the team are very happy with the end product".

The BBC have asked Monarch for further information about the company and are to produce a factsheet for the programme, which will also have a link to Monarch's homepage from the BBC web-site. (www.bbc.co.uk/homefront )

Household Textiles
With the bulk of the apparel and textile industries shifting outside Europe, almost every fabric producer is looking for alternative end-uses for their fabrics.  One of the most promising areas for these knitted products is household textiles, where the majority of these products are often woven.  But, as Monarch has shown with knitted curtains, household textiles includes a whole host of everyday woven products that could be targeted by knitters and could even reveal other untapped markets for new knitted products.

The machine builders have a big part to play if new end uses for knitted fabrics are to take off.  This is because it the machine builder who really does know the machine inside out, and can offer advice and subtle alternations to existing models specifically for a new given purpose.

As Monarch's Nigel Blythe explains, "We can rise to these challenges because we realise that knitted interior textiles are yet another alternative end-use to apparel.  If we ensure our customers succeed in the market place, then so do we."

Monarch is already working with a number of partners on such projects and has produced some outstanding reversible quilted fabrics with polyester filling.  Prototype fabrics have already been produced on Monarch;s V-LEC4DS 30 ins diameter double jersey machine.

Reversible Quilt
The reversible quilted jacquard fabric is knitted on a 30 ins diameter machine in 20G, but machine widths of up to 38 ins are available for larger quilted fabric.  These fabric quilts have numerous possible end uses in household textiles, such as bedthrows for hotels and guest houses as well as quilts in the home. Monarch says that these quilts have the advantage of being extremely light–weight and very soft compared to conventional woven bed linen. The fabrics are filled with polyester, which can be varied to give different final fabric thickness and weights.  Importantly, varying the thickness reduces the weight but the loft the fabric is still retained.

Very light weight reversible throws that have no in-fill can also be produced, and different coloured yarns are being used to maximise design possibilities.  The use of anti-bacterial yarns with these fabrics and flammability issues are also being tackled by Monarch to help it's customers maximise the added value of their products.

One recent success story that illustrates Monarch's commitment to providing solutions for knitters of interior textiles is that of Yesim, one of Monarchs most important customers, which produces the successful 'bed in a bag' sold by Marks and Spencer.

This knitted bed-linen is produced on Monarch's JXC-3S Jumbo model in a range of diameters from 42-60 ins in 28G single jersey to meet different bed size requirements (double, single, king etc).  The innovative packaging together with a high quality knitted product has been a great success, and shows how knitted fabric producers can make further advances into household textiles – previously a preserve of the woven fabrics industry.  But the question must be asked, for how much longer?

Extracted from Knitting International September 2000