Obertshausen - Karl Mayer is now offering new machine options for customers looking to produce net curtains on warp knitting machines with magazine weft insertion.
Its latest machine, the Weft.Fashion TM 3, can produce articles offering an on-trend look in the style of popular gauze-like fabrics made from monofilaments and fancy yarns, yet it also enables fabrics to be produced without sizing at a production rate that is 10 to 11 times higher than that of comparable looms, the company says.
The nature of the technology also means that the lightweight, transparent, warp-knitted fabrics have a high slip resistance. These advantages impressed the visitors at the last ITMA fair in June 2019 in Barcelona. During this important trade fair, Karl Mayer was showing a collection of on-trend, weft-inserted net curtains produced on the Weft.Fashion TM 3, which generated a great deal of buying interest.
Turkish visitors in particular showed significant interest and as a result, Karl Mayer's R&D department continued with their development work, processing fine monofilament rather than multifilament yarns on the warp knitting machine with weft insertion.
In the first stage, a lustrous yarn of dtex 22 was processed in all the yarn systems. A very delicate, extremely transparent, feather-light fabric with an organza ground was produced, which weighs just 20 g/m². Despite its ethereal look, the fabric is extremely stable and is suitable for embroidering.
The textile developer, Kay Burkhardt, is particularly pleased with the look of the fabric. “We processed a very dense structure at 35 stitches/cm to produce an extremely uniform appearance,” she said, adding that when hanging in front of the window, the net curtain creates a subtle interplay with the light to produce shimmering, glittering and moiré effects in all the colours of the rainbow.
In subsequent development stages, a ground made from monofilament yarns was combined with a weft made from different fancy yarns. Yarns featuring knops, nodules and crimps were processed and – what was particularly ingenious – a relatively thick yarn was used, which was first formed into a cord-like structure by pillar stitches. The optically dominant weft materials almost hide the ground. The result is new textile constructions, which, the company hopes, will stimulate the trend for net curtains with puristic-looking yet discreetly subtle patterns.
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