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Textiles and Design

Home > Textiles and Design > Properties and Performance of Textiles > How do yarns get designed?

Properties and performance of textiles

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How do yarns get designed?

In the Area of Study: Properties and performance of textiles, you will learn to develop knowledge and understanding of scientific and technological developments in the textiles industry. Novelty yarns allow designers to create interesting effects and utilise innovations in fibre and yarn manufacture.

The following article has been reproduced with permission from Textile Fibre Forum magazine. Read the article to get an idea of where the inspiration for novelty yarn development comes from. Visit the Trendsetter yarn web site. Select four yarns and investigate any unusual fibres used in the yarns. How do the fibres contribute to the decorative characteristics of the fibre?

Jenny Dowde interviews a trendsetting yarn designer: Barry Klein

As a freeformer who knits and crochets, I 'love' yarn. I lust after yarn. The size of my yarn stash is almost embarrassing but still, I cannot stop buying yarn! I will need to leave special instructions for my family so they dispose of it properly when the time comes because no way will I live long enough to use it all. I am not alone in this addiction - most of my fiber friends are in the same boat.

During my final 2004 Freeform workshop last November one of my students posed the question "How do yarns get designed?"... Interesting question and no one really had an answer. So I went to Barry Klein, the owner of one of my favourite websites http://www.trendsetteryarns.com and asked if he would consider telling us. He very graciously agreed to this emailed 'interview' exchange. And, as I was to discover, there is an 'Aussie connection' with this company, not once but twice.

jd: What made you choose to be a 'yarn designer'?

BK: My college degree was in business administration and television. I was going to work in an advertising agency. At the same time as college, I was designing sweaters for Fantacia and working as a freelance sales agent. Upon graduating college, I looked for an advertising job and realized that I could start at the bottom of something new or just continue to do what I love and was making a nice living at.... so I stuck with knitting. When Fantacia closed in 1985, I went to work for a USA company designing for them: I knew I wanted my own business and was biding my time until the money and the spirit and the time was right to start Trendsetter Yarns in 1988.

jd: Is Trendsetter a family business? How many staff do you have?

BK: Trendsetter is a Chapter S Corporation with Myrna and myself as the sole owners. We currently have 12 employees in house and 15 independent sales agents around the USA and Canada and we sell our products worldwide.

jd: How long have you been working with and designing yarns?

BK: I have been in this industry (working with yarns) since 1975. My mother owned a retail knitting store and I worked in the store after school. At first I never touched the yarns, just sat and complained. One of the employees yelled at me one day, threw needles in my hand and taught me to knit. We are still good friends and my love of creating and designing has continued since then.

In our store, we custom designed sweaters for our customers. No one used a knitting book. We took measurements, used their gauge and designed to fit. We all took private charting lessons in order to be good at what we did. At the office we would cut out pictures from magazines, then go home and knit swatches in basic stitches and technical stitches and have to chart the body from one photo with the collar and sleeves from another - anything to challenge our abilities.

I started designing yarns when I launched Trendsetter Yarns in 1988. I was fortunate enough to go to Europe with my mother (also my business partner) who had previously owned Fantacia Yarns, one of the premier novelty yarn companies in the USA from 1975 until 1985. Myrna kept her contacts with the factories and we went to visit them. When they saw that we had started a family business, they were in love with us. When they realised that I was technically able to understand the construction, they let me sketch and ask for certain things. Together, we have introduced some of the most innovative and exciting yarns ever designed.

jd: Does anyone else have input into yarn design?

BK: In many cases, we will work with the yarns that the factories will show us. Many times they do some great stuff. What I can do is 'tweak' the great and make it incredible. Myrna has a great colour sense and we bounce ideas off each other. We also have been working with Fayla Reiss, a good friend of ours who lives here in California but is originally from Australia. Fayla loves to embellish and knows how to take things over the top.

jd: What inspires you?.

BK: What inspires me are body shapes and how the yarns work on the body. I like making yarns into fabrics and also making yarns into lace. Textures talk to me. I have knitted thousands upon thousands of swatches trying colours, stitches, textures and plain knitting. From there I look at body styles. I spend time going through fabric patterns looking at lengths and fit, sleeve styles and collars. Sometimes it is as simple as using an old design in new yarns...it really works and looks brand new. You don't always have to reinvent the wheel.

jd: Are your yarns all made in Italy ? If not, where else?

BK: About 90% of our yarns come from Italy. We work with 11 different companies. We also buy from 2 companies in France.

jd: You've mentioned recently spending a week in Italy designing new yarns. How often do you travel there in a year?

BK: We travel to Italy twice a year for a show ca11ed Pitti Filati. It is the industrial and hand knitting show for yarns. It is mostly industrial but we get a chance to see style and color. Most of the companies we work with do not show at Pitti Filati. I have also been asked to work with a special company at least once or twice a year in designing some of their collection. They have the most innovative and up to date machinery and their technical staff is absolutely the best. But, as with everything else, you burn out and sometimes you need fresh eyes or different eyes. Also, I work with the retail stores in the States. I see what they want and I can help them get it. I can also see what is missing and can help to fill the gap. This one factory has allowed me to go places in our industry that no other company owner has ever been or will ever go. I am truly very lucky and very blessed to have this opportunity.

jd: Do you source your raw materials worldwide?

BK: I don't purchase any of the raw materials. The companies I buy from do this as they spin the yarns. They know who produces the best and most tactile materials. Our product line is all about texture and feel.

jd: How long does a yarn take from concept to production?

BK: On the average, a yarn I design will take about 6 months to a year from inception to creation to distribution. If we buy a yarn that is already designed and perfect, we can get inventory to the stores in about 3 months.

jd: When deciding on colors for your yarns, do you follow current colour trends or design whatever appeals to you, the designer?

BK: We have a set group of colours that we love, and we dye them in all of our yarns so that we can tell a colour story without products. We will then look at the colour forecast for the season and try to stay on top of current trends. In addition, I work closely with Laura Bryant from Prism Yarns. She is the top hand dye artisan in the USA specializing in luxury hand dyed fibers. She has a degree in color and I am fortunate that she will share her color direction with our customers and me.

jd: A lot of your yarns look so incredibly luxurious. Is there a degree of difficulty involved in the production of any of them?

BK: Many of our yarns are diffficult to produce because I don't like companies to easily copy them. What also makes them so luscious are the fibers. We use really soft fibers made up of thin microfibers. The colors saturate easily and the feel is incredible. We have many types of wools that feel like cotton and many new variations of nylon such as Tactel that just make you want melt or curl up in a corner and suck your thumb like a baby. Our collection has a 'lust' factor to it that makes you want to keep the project on the needle and never stop knitting it.

BK: There are three types of machines that we work with; twisting machines which take different fibers and twist them together, chenille machines which create yarns with a center core that are injected at high speed and sealed in place and finally there are chaining machines which use small crochet hooks that create chains while a weft will move back and forth injecting fibers or weaving fabrics along the chain. The yarn Montage uses the chaining machine for most of the individual fibers inside and then a twisting machine that will bring all of the fibres together and wrap a light metallic yarn around them, grouping them together. Montage is made up of 4 different types of yarns, each bringing a different coloration and texture to the group.

jd: Who invents the names for your yarns?

BK: Naming the yarns is one of my favourite parts. We will look at the skeins, look at the swatches and see what they want to be called. It is like looking at your newborn child and seeing if the name you selected fits their face. I find that many of our yarns have food names, which explains a lot to our close customers (big laugh). Most yarns have names that describe the texture or the mood or the feel.

jd: If I was to visit the USA , could I buy from your warehouse?

BK: In the States, you have to decide if you are wholesale or retail. Being both is impossible as you become competition for the stores that help promote your product. Our business license is for wholesale only so we do not sell directly to the consumer.

jd: Do you hold group tours at your warehouse?

BK: We do not hold tours here. Our warehouse is about 12,000 square feet and is full to the top. We run a ten hour day and ship out about 125 orders a day. Our sweaters are always on tour so our showroom is empty. It would be impossible to set up a tour. Every once in a while we will open the warehouse to a store that will bring in their customers and set up a fashion show here.

jd: Do you find that our business fluctuates with the popularity of the fiber arts?

BK: Business has always fluctuated but we have seen a continued growth this time. Since knitting and crochet has become 'chic' and 'hip', we find we have younger audience. Many schools are putting classes back in. Most movie stars are knitting and are advertising their love of the craft. So, for the moment, we see only continued growth.

jd: Do you personally knit or crochet?

BK: I personally love to knit. I learned to crochet and can do most stitches but I love to knit because all of my stitches are on the needle. I'm never looking for where my needle has to go. I am not a complicated knitter. I usually stay away from lots of color work and bobbins. Instead I prefer slipstitch patterns playing color and texture off each other. Also, I love bodies and body shapes so a lot of what we do goes into the design of the garment and the fit on the body allowing the textures of the yarns to flow.

jd: I see on your website that you have some designers working for you, one of them being our own Jane Slicer-Smith of Signature Handknits, but do you do any garment designing yourself or do you out source that side of your business?

BK: Other than Jane Slicer-Smith, Fayla Reiss is the only other designer. I have designed all of the garments featured on our website since we started. I have personally designed about 100 sweaters a year since 1988.

So there you have it... a brief but fascinating insight into the wonderful world of novelty yarns.

I think a lot of you fellow yarn addicts will agree that Barry has one of the best jobs ever! If you have access to the Internet you can go drool over the Trendsetter Collection at http://www.trendsetteryarns.com