Saturday, 16 January 2016

Heimtex 2016

For me, Heimtex in Frankfurt in early January is the sign that the year has truly started again, and I always love this fair.

Heimtex is huge and still probably the world's largest interior textile fair, as there's everything there from bedding, flooring, wallpaper, and of course lots and lots of textiles. I enjoy it because it's such a good meeting place, very stimulating, and is such a great place to meet many of my interesting and clever textile friends from all over the world.
I spent a lot of time in hall 5.1, the sun-protection/blind hall, and it was as busy as usual. It was also good to see a number of NHT's blind pulls on the huge Innov8 stand, and hope they had a great show.
Always the most exciting part of my visit to Heimtex is the Trend section, which this time they called 'Theme Park'. These are a few of my images along with some of their official press images ;
Their designers create a wonderful world of colour and texture, and always display their ideas with great innovation. Sadly I did not have time to listen to the lectures, which was my loss, as they are always thought provoking.

As usual, I came away from Heimtex with my head buzzing with ideas and new projects, and can't wait until next year!



Tuesday, 17 November 2015

ITMA in Milan

Textiles go into everything. Not just the clothes you wear, but they are in your car, your home, medical products or in many things you might buy or use.

Every 4 years, ITMA or the International Textile Machinery Association runs one of the worlds largest trade fairs for this important industry. The fair moves from city to city, and this year it is in Milan, Italy.

New House was there because we design and manufacture yarn-breakage detection systems, designed to stop a creel if a yarn should break.

NHT -10 is an advanced optical system :
NHT-58 is a well-proven mechanical system that we have made for years :
These are a legacy from our knitting plant that we had from 1930's until the late 70's. My grandfather ran German Liba warp-knitting machines and needed to find new ways of handling the then latest man-made fibres. Today we still supply our systems to German or French original equipment makers, so it is great to see everyone at ITMA.
The Ascotex stand who is displaying our units :
A huge Jacquard carpet making machine :
Beams on an advanced Picanol weaving machine :
These devices are positive feeders that give a smooth flow of yarn to the airjet shuttles :
This weaving machine went at a tremendous rate of 3500 picks per minute, hence the crowd that gathered ;
It is well known that cellulose yarns like cotton become stronger and easier to weave when damp (that's why Manchester was such a center for cotton production). Here a steamer increases the air's humidity :
German Stoll is a famous brand of V-bed knitting machines. I took quite a few images as my Norwegian godfather used to run a plant of Stoll's , and was curious as to how they look these days :  
Dad on the Stoll stand ;
Next to each machine was a complicated knitted piece that the machine had made. As the show was in Italy, this one had a knitted pizza that took the machine around 30 minutes knitting time to create each slice : 
Karl Mayer bought Liba last year, and dominate warp-knitting machinery today :
 
When I was a school kid, I used to thread-up these machines in the same way that this technician is doing :
In creeling these are Karl Mayer tensioners. We developed something similar a few years ago, but never put the units into production. :
This manikin with her wonky paper lips is probably why you may not want textile machinery technicians doing your window dressing :
These are harnesses that control the heald-shafts of a loom. I think they are from a Jacquard by Bonas. : 

Friday, 9 October 2015

BBSA Showcase

We launched our new collection at the BBSA Showcase event in Coventry this week, and here are a few images of the build. Guy and Nigel are having a well-earned coffee break after putting the walls up, while Melanie is busy sorting out what goes onto the shelves :

I took these photos the night before the show opened, and believe it or not, never got time to take anymore! :

The colour was actually a gorgeous super-trendy chartreuse colour, but this doesn't seem to have come out in my photos all that well. Our stand was in a great spot next to the cafe, and we won Best Stand Award. This is me accepting the trophy and being interviewed afterwards  :



The show was a great sucess, and New House will be kept busy for ages sending out new collection books and orders for our new fabrics. Congratulations to our designers Melanie, Charlotte & Laura, and all the good people behind the scenes, especially Sam, Linda, Maz and Kerry!

It's always a sad moment at the end of a good show when the whistle blows, and your home for the last three days gets taken down : Guy and Nigel appeared immediately, and 24hrs later our stand was stored at the back of our 300yr old Herefordshire buildings, ready for the next show.