Chenille Yarns

Chenille Yarns

Chenille Yarns are a special type of yarn with pile protruding on all sides, produced by first weaving a fabric, usually with cotton or linen warp and silk, wool, rayon or cotton weft; the warps are taped in groups of four and the wefts are beaten in very closely; after weaving, the fabric is cut lengthwise between each of these groups of warp yarns, each cutting producing a continuous chenille which is then twisted. The word Chenille means caterpillar in French. Chenille derived its name from the process it is made.

The chenille yarn is manufactured by placing short lengths of yarn, called the "pile", between two "core yarns" and then twisting the yarn together. The edges of these piles then stand at right angles to the yarn’s core, giving chenille both its softness and its characteristic look. Chenille will look different in one direction compared to another, as the fibers catch the light differently. The yarn is commonly manufactured from cotton, but can also be made using acrylic, rayon and olefin.

Chenille is a difficult yarn to manufacture, requiring great care in production. Due to the nature of chenille's pile direction, pile completeness and pile loss, great care must be taken in converting chenille into final articles.

Benlon India’s Chenille Yarn is made from a perfect blend of the high-grade Polyester, Acrylic, Cotton, and other yarns. To ensure the excellent quality standards of our Chenille Yarns, we strictly test them on various intervals by making use of advanced testing facilities. All these factors have boosted the demand of our Chenille Yarn in the market across the world and made Benlon India a preferred name in the industry.

Chenille yarns are traditionally used in the manufacture of furnishing fabrics and trimmings, fashion knitwear, and as decorative threads in many types of broad and narrow fabrics.

Taking Care of Chenille Fabrics  -

Dyes, color treatment and washing characteristics : Turn the fabric wrong-side out before washing. Either hand wash or machine wash in a gentle cycle with low heat. Dry flat. 

Draping properties : Chenille should never be hung, as it will naturally stretch and lose its shape.

Cutting properties : Can be cut in double layers, but weights should be used to hold the fabric in place and prevent it from stretching.

CHENILLE QUALITY TOLERANCES: The nature of the chenille process results in a wider range of yield and twist variation compared to other yarn manufacturing processes. The yield and twist tolerances are as follows:
INTERNATIONAL SPECIFICATION FOR CHENILLE COUNT AND TWIST TOLERANCES

Sample Size	1	5	10	25	100
Count/Yield (% ±)	20.0	10.0	6.0	4.0	2.0
Twist (% ±)	20.0	10.0	6.0	4.0	2.0

Sewing challenges : Cut pieces should be serged to prevent the edges from unraveling. Push the fabric into the presser foot while say rather than letting the feed dogs pull the fabric forward to prevent it stretching while sewing. For interfacing, use a fusible tricot. A walking of teflon foot is best on the sewing machine. Sew seams with straight stitches and press seams open. It is usually advisable to cover the fabric with a press cloth while pressing, and press on the wrong side of the fabric, as pressing the right side will flatten the nap. The iron can be hot and with steam. Topstitching should be avoided. Hand hemming is the best choice, after serging the edges.

Cleaning : Since Chenille fabric is typically made from cotton, wool and silk, if no instructions are given for washing the particular fabric then wash as for the fabric type.

Stains on the chenille fabric should be treated right away and cotton towel should be used to faint it. Do not rub the stain as it may spread the stain and make the chenille harder to clean. Brush the stain with baby's hairbrush. It will not only help in removing the stain, but it will keep the fabric condition good and soft. Clean the stain with mild detergent, and use clean cotton towel to apply the solvent to the product. If the stain is hard to remove and it requires more extensive cleaning then utilize the services of the upholstery cleaners. If the stain is occurred on an item like chenille fabric blanket, you can wash it to make the stain fade away. 

Uses of Chenille material: Chenille material is used in making bedspreads.This material became popular and is used in blankets, pillows, comforters, curtains and rugs etc. It is also used in making robes, bed jackets and slippers.

History

According to textile historians, chenille-type yarn is a recent technique, being produced in the 18th century and is believed to have originated in France. Back then the yarn was actually made by weaving a "leno" fabric and then cutting the fabric into strips to make the chenille yarn.

Alexander Buchanan was a foreman who worked in a Paisley Scotland fabric mill and here he developed a way to weave fuzzy shawls. Here tufts of colored wool were woven together into a blanket that was then cut into strips. They were treated by heating rollers in order to create the frizz. This resulted in a very soft, fuzzy fabric named chenille. Another paisley shawl manufacturer went on to further develop the technique. James Templeton and William Quigley worked to refine this process, thus creating the idea of applying this technique in order to create imitation oriental rugs. The intricate patterns used to be difficult to reproduce by automation, but this technique solved that issue.

In the 1930s, usage for the tufted fabric became widely desirable for throws, mats, bedspreads, and carpets, but not as yet, apparel. Companies shifted handwork from the farms into factories for greater control and productivity. With the trend towards mechanization, adapted sewing machines were used to insert raised yarn tufts.

Chenille became popularized for apparel with commercial production in the 1970s.

Standards of industrial production were not introduced until the 1990s, when the Chenille International Manufacturers Association (CIMA) was formed with the mission to improve and develop the manufacturing processes

One of the problems with chenille yarns is that the tufts can work loose and create bare fabric. This was resolved by using a low melt nylon in the core of the yarn and then autoclaving (steaming) the hanks of yarn to set the pile in place.

Use of Chenille in Quilting

Since the late 1990s, chenille appeared in quilting in a number of yarns. As a yarn, it is a soft, feathery synthetic that when stitched onto a backing fabric, gives a velvety appearance, also known as imitation or "faux chenille". Real chenille quilts are made using patches of chenille fabric in various patterns and colors, with or without "ragging" the seams.

The chenille effect by ragging the seams, has been adapted by quilters for a casual country look. A quilt with a so-called "chenille finish" is known as a "rag quilt" or, a "slash quilt" due to the frayed exposed seams of the patches and the method of achieving this. Layers of soft cotton are batted together in patches or blocks and sewn with wide, raw edges to the front. These edges are then cut, or slashed, to create a worn, soft, "chenille" effect.

Manufacturing Process

Chenille yarn is manufactured on a machine that is designed to bring the pile yarns and core yarns together. During manufacture, the pile yarns are wrapped around a short stem of polished metal, called a caliper, through which a blade passes to cut the pile yarns into short lengths. The core yarns are pressed onto the short lengths with a rotating metal wheel.

The resulting yarn is then fed onto a traditional ring twisting take up mechanism. In the twisting process, the two ends of core yarn twist and trap the short ends of pile between the core yarns. The size of the caliper determines the diameter of the resulting yarn. The size and number of the pile yarns and how much of them are fed onto the core determines the count of the yarn.

Chenille is manufactured in a two step process. Step one is the manufacture of the chenille onto a chenille bobbin, and step two is the rewinding of the chenille onto a cone or dye tube. An electronic clearer is located in the yarn path of step two to detect lengths of yarn that have pile missing. When the electronic clearer detects a section of missing pile greater than the minimum setting specified (usually 3 mm), a cutter is electronically activated. The yarn is cut, and the winder operator then pulls the yarn back and cuts out the missing pile section, reties the yarn, and continues winding the package. The electronic clearer devices are almost 100% effective.

Knots and Splices: Knotting or splicing chenille must be done carefully to avoid defects in the items that use chenille yarn. Simply tying a knot in the chenille yarn itself creates such a defect, so there are two alternative methods for "tying" the chenille yarn.

Method one is a core knot. This is made by stripping back the pile of both ends of the chenille sufficiently so that it is possible to tie a double square knot in the core yarns. Care has to be taken to hold the twist in the yarn ends where the pile starts. Once the double square knot is tied, the ends are clipped close to the small knot. The pile ends are then pushed over the knot. Method two uses a splice. To create the splice, the two ends of chenille are overlapped 1 ½ to 2 inches and a mechanical wrap-around splicing device applies the wrap yarn. The wrap yarn can be either a fine monofilament nylon or a very fine yarn of the same fiber as the chenille pile.

Pile Direction: The chenille manufacturing process creates pile that lies in one direction. When woven into a fabric, chenille reflects light differently when viewed from different directions. This is known as the "reflection effect," and it is one of the unique and desirable characteristics of chenille goods. Because of this, strict control of the pile direction must be maintained during both the step of manufacturing the chenille and also all subsequent processes required to convert the chenille into a finished article.

It is not possible accurately to visually evaluate the direction of natural or dyed chenille yarn in its yarn form. Weaving the chenille yarn into a solid test fabric is the only way of detecting the true direction of a yarn. The appearance of a "V" or an inverted "V" in the pile can reflect other characteristics of the chenille yarn other than direction. Following step one of manufacturing, the yarn has direction one. After the winding process in step two, the yarn has direction two. The chenille yarn producer has taken all the necessary steps to ensure that the chenille yarn is all in the same direction when it is shipped to the user.

The chenille yarn user must take care to maintain the same pile direction throughout manufacturing. For example, with yarn sold on dye tubes and coned after dying, if rewinding is necessary (as in the case of cross-wound yarn or packages that are too hard or soft), the yarn must be rewound TWICE so that all the yarn remains in the original pile direction. If this rule is not strictly observed, streaks will result in the final fabric.

Benlon India takes every precaution to provide you Chenille Yarn of the best quality. If you are interested in our products and would like to be part of our growth story, please contact us on sales@benlonindia.com 

For more information about our company and our products, please visit www.benlonindia.com