A Great Day at MTL for Textile Designers

On Wednesday November 8th a group of Textile Design undergraduate and graduate students visited the high-end textile mill MTL, in Jessup, PA.  Joy Alaoui, Director of Design and Danielle Plant, MTL Designer, gave us wonderful tours and created a great, immersive educational experience for us.  MTL produces fantastic flat woven jacquard textiles, as well as amazing jacquard velvets.  Here are some highlights of the day:

Wonderful jacquard on loom.

Joy and some of the students examine the velvet loom.

A beautiful velvet on loom.

The velvet discussion continues at the loom.

A velvet on loom showing insertion of the wires and the razor to cut the pile.

A creel for a velvet loom.

The back of a velvet loom.

Another velvet jacquard on the loom.

Bobbins for velvet weaving.

Reviewing designs in the extensive archive.

Textile history captured in the archives.

One of many rows of design archives.

A happy, inspired group at the end of a wonderful day!

Textile Design Students Woolrich Immersion

On Friday November 3rd Textile Design graduate students visited Woolrich, the wonderful woolen manufacturer founded by John Rich in Plum Run, PA in 1830.  Rob Stuart, the Manager of Fabric Design and Quality Control, gave us a wonderful immersive tour.  Here are a few images from the day.

Raw wool

Dyed wool fiber

Rob Stuart is explaining processing to us.

Rob answered many questions from the group.

Part of the yarn spinning process

The company history is prevalent throughout the wonderful mill.

Beautiful wooden bins waiting for yarn.

Dyed yarn ready for weaving

A view of the weave floor.