Hi. I’m Pat McGrew and welcome back to another edition of Print Sample TV. This snippet is about technology. In fact, it’s a technology so new that very few people have seen it, and we had to work with the creator of this technology in order to get some samples to be able to show them to you. So the company is called Twine, they are based in Israel. Alon Moshe, Yariv Bustan, the whole team there have done an amazing job of I think creating disruption is the best way of putting it in a market you may not think about very often, and that’s the market for thread.

So thread is an interesting thing. It’s what we use to sow edges onto things. It’s also what we use to manufacture things like socks and all sorts of different kinds of textiles. On the case of Twine, they took a hard look at the industry and they said, “You know what? The problem with thread and yarn is that it’s dyed in big batches, and those big batches, the creation process is long. If you’re a designer you have to think a long way ahead to decide what the different colors are that you’re going to want, and you’re largely restricted to having yarn that is all one color. So from a digital textile perspective that’s sort of limiting.” And they thought that they could do something about that.

So using their expertise in understanding digital processes, inkjet, a number of digital printing processes, they developed a solution that allows for the creation of spools of thread and yarn that actually can be any color you want. And in fact they can be more than one color, they can be gradients. They are very technologically-savvy people so not only do they now understand and have a methodology for creating gradient yarns, they also are linked into the Cloud so that a designer could decide what color they want and they could work with their Cloud-based color management system in order to develop the right formula for the colors that they want to be created on this new digital yarn dying system.

So a picture is worth a 1,000 words. And so the one that they showed me was a little bit interesting, it was men’s briefs. And this is how you typically buy them out of the package today – plain black, nothing great. So the thought they had was what if you could actually we’ll say jazz them up a little bit. But the thing that you have to look at very carefully is that this isn’t just one color threaded around the edge. This is yarn that’s actually changing color as it’s being looped around the edge. And that is unique to what Twine can do with yarn and with thread. They’ve done it not only with these lovely men’s briefs but they’ve done it around the edges of this lovely athletic shirt.

And the technology lends itself to some interesting things. Here’s a sock, and the sock is actually woven straight through from a single piece of yarn and it changes colors along the way without the need to change yarn batches on the weaving machine.

They have an interesting process that they talk about and this book that they’ve put together actually also shows the capabilities of their embroidery with using the same dyed yarn technology. And it’s just absolutely fascinating to me.

So the reason I wanted to bring this to you is because it’s disruptive. It’s a piece of technology that you’re going to hear a lot about in the future. Take a look out on the Internet, you’re going to find a number of really nicely done articles that really describe the technology they’re using to dye the yarn in detail. I’ve got a blog out there that you’ll be able to find as well with some pictures of all of these pieces included in that blog and some nice close up action, if you will.

As you start thinking about how printing relates to some of the upcoming technologies, the changes that are coming in digital textiles, the ability to do digital wallpaper manufacturing, the ability to do large banners and posters with digital technology, start thinking about how you’re going to tell that story. The folks of Twine have done a brilliant job. I personally would not have thought of men’s underwear as a way to tell the story, or even probably socks. But they do a very nice job.

So I want to thank the folks at Twine for airlifting the samples to me. And thank you for tuning into this episode of Print Sample TV. I’m Pat McGrew, we hope you’ll come back for another edition.