Knitting elastane in the ground bar is nothing new. Earlier, there was less demand of the knitted elastane because the yarn feed had to be modified. A high level of technical knowledge was required to process the elastane. However, Karl Mayer, a market leader in textile machinery, has now developed products that lie between sports and lingerie, with its extremely flexible production machine LEISUREE.FASHION.
It is a multibar jacquard (MJ) raschel machine that produces stretch and non-stretch all-over lace and tapes. It can also produce light and sophisticated lace designs keeping up with the latest trends. The flexibility of the machine is dependent on how the guide bars on the machine is configured. The MJ models have one jacquard and three ground guide bars for processing elastane, one of which is responsible for stitch formation.
LEISUREE.FASHION not only gives aesthetic looks to an athleisure outfit but also makes it comfortable to wear with ease of movement due to its bielasticity property.
According to Valentina Krel, Product Manager at Karl Mayer, the lightweight elastane cannot be processed since it was not strong enough. To process the elastane with high yarn counts in both the ground and pattern bars, additional knitting trials needed to be carried out in order so as to fully utilize the speed of the machine.
She added, “If our expectations of the trials are met, we will step up our product development in the LEISUREE.FASHION sector significantly. Our customers have already signalled that they are very interested in this.”
Until now, the company has developed two textile product innovations in the LEISUREE.FASHION segment. First was a phenomenal, stretch fabric for shapewear brands produced on MJ 52/1S machine which was lighter in weight and also created transparent and opaque effects with its relief-like, superimposed design. Second product was a dense fabric with a light, two-way-stretch ground produced by the jacquard bar and the stitch-forming ground bar at the rear on the MJ 52/1S.
Karl Mayer is Germany based manufacturer that offers solutions for warp knitting, technical textiles and warp preparation for weaving.
