Our unique 100% cotton chenille
Our production site in Hohenberg an der Eger, located on the Czech border, combines state-of-the-art technology with traditional craftsmanship to produce our genuine FEILER chenille. Here, in an idyllic setting, modern equipment weaves the yarns, while skilled hands add the finishing touches to the chenille cloths. The products are therefore entirely Made in Germany.
What exactly is chenille?
The name chenille comes from the French and means caterpillar, due to the caterpillar-like nature of the chenille thread. The inventor of the weaving technique is unknown, but colourful woven chenille, with its characteristic feature of identical patterning on both sides, first appeared at the end of the 19th century.
The history of woven chenille
After the typical chenille first appeared at the end of the 19th century, the center of chenille weaving emerged in the early 20th century in southern Saxony, between Zwickau and Chemnitz, and in Upper Lusatia. Approximately twenty companies practiced the chenille technique at that time. However, only a few weaving mills survived after World War II. Today, the FEILER company is the only weaving mill for colourful woven chenille in Europe.
This is how our colourful FEILER chenille is created
Genuine FEILER chenille is a unique, fluffy fabric made from pure cotton. The special weaving technique allows us to weave the patterns rather than just print them. This results in a consistent pattern that is visually consistent on both sides and will not fade. The pleasantly soft and skin-friendly pile, high absorbency, and washfastness characterize our special fabric. The best raw materials and careful processing guarantee easy care and a high utility value for many years to come.
The following steps show you how our chenille is made:
Step 1: The digital design
Every year, we launch new designs for our various collections. These are developed by our in-house designers and digitally rendered using a special program. The finished design is composed of individual pixels in a grid-like structure and could almost be mistaken for a pixelated image.
Step 2: Choosing the colours
Our designers select the appropriate colours from a pool of approximately 120 colours already in the design phase. Up to 18 colours can be incorporated into each design, which must be determined prior to production. While this may seem limited at first, we are the only weaving company in Germany capable of producing brightly woven Chenille with such a variety of colours.
Step 3: Prepratory fabric with detailed pattern information
Before the preparatory fabric is created, our yarns undergo a thorough quality check in the warehouse. Samples are taken from each batch and tested for yarn fineness, exact moisture content, abrasion resistance, tensile strength, and colour accuracy. Subsequently, the threads are rewound according to their intended use, and the warp is formed. It contains all the detailed colour information that was previously represented as individual pixels, making the pattern unique later on.
Step 4: Flat stripes, the preliminary stage to chenille
The preparatory fabric can be imagined as a large, striped tablecloth. It is then cut into in two steps into 504 individual threads. These so-called flat stripes are the preliminary stage to our Chenille yarn.
Step 5: The chenille thread, also called caterpillar yarn
The flat stripes are twisted into our finished chenille threads. Our chenille threads are also known as caterpillar yarn because they are fluffy all around, like a small, hairy caterpillar. The individual chenille threads reveal the pattern.
Step 6: The pattern is created on the weaving loom
The chenille yarn is woven thread by thread, creating the finished chenille and thus the pattern on the loom. After the weaving process is complete, every inch of the woven chenille is carefully inspected. This includes checking for colours, length, width, and pattern repeats, as well as any possible defects in the weave. The chenille is then washed again before being further processed into individual products.
Step 7: Our finished chenille product
In our in-house sewing department, we transform the fabric into finished products. Our services range from automatic overlocking of face and beauty towels to manual knotting of the end threads. All other products are sewn by hand. These steps take place in our own production facilities in Hohenberg an der Eger. Finally, the products undergo our quality control and are sent through a metal detector before being warehoused and shipped worldwide.
Chenille stands for pure quality
The awareness that you come into close contact with our products every day motivates us to ensure the highest quality even when purchasing our yarns. Therefore, all our products are certified according to OEKO-TEX® Standard 100. This ensures that we offer our customers skin-friendly products that are subject to constant quality control. Our chenille impresses with its overall material properties, making it your ideal companion for everyday use.
The difference to decorative chenille
By the way, there are even simpler and cheaper ways to produce chenille yarn. The caterpillar is not created through a weaving process, but rather through twisting or flocking. This makes it impossible to create a pattern in the caterpillar yarn.
Whether you are holding FEILER chenille or a product made from decorative chenille, you can tell by the following features:
Genuine FEILER woven chenille:
- Fluffy and cuddly soft
- Highly absorbent
- The exclusive design is identical on both sides
- The genuine, golden FEILER Germany label
Decorative chenille:
- Fluffy, but low durability
- The pile can be easily pulled out
- Used for decorative fabrics, fashion items, borders and trimmings often made from synthetic yarns
- Or quite simply: There is no FEILER Germany label