TEXTILE 101 EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT TEXTILES

Textiles are far more sophisticated than sweaters and cotton cloth. With applications in fields as

wide ranging as aerospace, automotive, biodiversity and healthcare, textiles have a broad range

of characteristics. Textiles can be tough, soft, stretchy, or even all three. Some textiles help clean

polluted water. Others prevent burns, hold airplane parts together or camouflage soldiers in

combat. At Apex Mills, we have to have a solid understand of a few key elements in order to deliver

our broad range of textiles.

YARNS

Yarns are the building blocks of textiles. At Apex Mills, we work with yarn makers to create yarns specific to each customer’s needs. Apex Mills uses only synthetic yarns, which are created by heating and softening polyester chips, then spinning and extruding them in long continuous filaments.

A yarn might be monofilament-like fishing line, or it can use combinations of multiple filaments spun together forming yarns with various properties. These multifilament yarns create fabrics with unique structure, such as increased stretchiness, greater porosity, or varying degrees of softness, toughness, luster or pliability. Some yarns may consist of over a hundred filaments spun together, making the end fabric softer and more plush. In essence, the higher the filament count, measured in deniers, the softer the fabric will be.

Yarns have different lusters—degrees of brightness. Most yarns in cross section are round, but a cross section of a tri-lobal yarn looks like a triangle with concave sides, which produce the most reflective fabrics. Vests for highway workers are made with tri-lobal yarns, so that they may be as bright as possible. Yarns can have hydrophilic properties designed into them, to wick water away, or they can have antimicrobial elements added, to avoid unpleasant odors. Now, many yarns are being recycled adding environmental friendliness to their attributes. Over 70 years of industry knowledge lets Apex Mills quickly understand the best yarns for their customers’ needs.

Keep reading for information on Warp Knitting and Finishing >

YARNS WARP KNITTING FINISHING

WARP KNITTING

Yarn choice is critical in a fabric, but, in the U.S., most major textile mills buy materials from the same yarn makers. When yarns come through Apex Mills’ doors, that’s where the magic begins. That’s where spools of yarn become something more than what our competitors offer. Apex Mills does not weave its textiles. We use only warp knitting because of the advantages it provides over other techniques.

Woven fabrics are made from threads running vertically and horizontally (think a broadcloth shirt) which leaves little room for variation in porosity and almost no room for stretch. Warp knitting, the linking of stitches and loops (think of a quality golf shirt), frees Apex Mills designers to vary the fabric’s architecture in ways that affect elasticity, porosity, durability, coarseness or smoothness. Warp knitting allows for the production of much wider sheets of fabric than circular knitting or weaving. It creates fabrics much less likely to sag than another type of knitting called weft insertion knitting, and less likely to shrink or ravel. And, warp knitting allows Apex Mills to create three different kinds of fabric: solid knit, mesh/netting and 3D spacer fabrics.

Warp knitting involves attaching sometimes thousands of yarn filaments side by side on a long metal spool called a beam and winding them together. It’s critical that all the filaments are wound onto the beam at the same tension to prevent defects in the fabric. It can take days to set-up a machine properly. When you watch someone knit a sweater, they move horizontally, one row of loops and stitches at a time. A warp knitting machine knits vertically by using thousands of needles to create thousands of loops and stitches simultaneously.

By varying what kinds of yarns are used and how, and by altering the movement of the needles, Apex Mills can create solid knit or mesh knit fabrics with loop openings of differing shapes and sizes. The machines provide enormous flexibility, so that vastly different textiles can be produced from the same process. These textiles are designed to meet the wide range of performance characteristics our customers require and have learned to expect from Apex Mills.

Warp knitting also allows us to create 3D spacer fabrics, which are replacing foam in many applications because they’re more durable and environmentally kind. These fabrics consist of two layers of multifilament mesh knits connected with lengths of thick spacer fibers, often springy monofilament, to create a thicker, bouncier fabric that allows for air movement between the layers. Using the same type of machinery and processes, but intricate permutations learned from 70 years of continuous innovation, we were able to produce 800 different textiles last year alone.

These fabrics are useful in office furniture, military backpacks, running shoes and automotive seats that feature blown air circulation.

YARNS WARP KNITTING FINISHING

TEXTILE 101 EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT TEXTILES

FINISHING

The fabric that rolls off the warp knitting machine is called greige (pronounced “gray”). Some greige fabrics are used as is but a considerable number of Apex Mills textiles require finishing. When customers want colored fabrics, the greige is placed in a jet-dye tank and subjected to heat and pressure so that the injected dyes take evenly and are colorfast.

A mesh knit fabric will naturally want to compress like an accordion. These fabrics require tenting. The fabric edges are pinned to parallel rails, the position of which can be widened or narrowed to provide the preferred elongation, stretch and smoothness of the fabric. It is then run through heating ovens precisely regulated at pre-determined temperatures that Apex Mills engineers know will set the fabric’s stretch memory. We’re able to create various textiles with the precise elongation and elasticity our customers want them to have.

At this point, fabrics may be treated with other applications according to the customer’s needs: antimicrobial elements, flame retardant chemicals, UV treatment to prevent color fading, or resins to make the fabric stiffer.

Nobody has the breadth of capability that Apex Mills has. We can produce a fabric that weighs a half-ounce per linear yard, or one that weighs 25 ounces per linear yard. Using the same type of machinery and processes—but intricate permutations learned from 70 years of continuous innovation—Apex Mills was able to produce 800 different textiles last year alone.

These fabrics are useful in office furniture, military backpacks, running shoes and automotive seats that feature blown air circulation.

YARNS WARP KNITTING FINISHING

TEXTILE 101 EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT TEXTILES