It’s Kreinik Calling! where Dena Lenham from Kreinik Manufacturing Company shares inspiration and innovation with threads!
Do you love factory tours or watching how things are made? Today I want to show you how Kreinik makes metallic threads, via a new video produced by Kyle Sams for Kreinik. It offers a rare look at the raw materials, machines, and people who make the threads we use in needlepoint, embroidery, cross stitch, and all fiber arts. In a little renovated church building, the company that started in a family’s home has been making these threads for 45 years.
Why the Kreinik factory is so awesome
- There’s thread everywhere! For a stitcher or anyone who has ever made anything, you feel like you’re in a candy store.
- The colors! Cones of colors, from neons to metals to fluorescent to jewel tones, line the shelves and walls. You truly feel like you’ve stepped into a rainbow.
- The foyer and main hallway is an art gallery for textiles, with all kinds of designs and models on the walls and tables.
- The machinery is a testament to a century of textile production; some of the machines are over a hundred years old. Jerry Kreinik and his son Doug Kreinik would buy old equipment and rebuild them. An engineer keeps them running smoothly today.
- You truly appreciate what goes into the little spools of metallic threads you use in your projects. Someone actually makes thread—and in the little state of West Virginia USA.
Alas, there are no official factory tours, although the Kreinik Outlet Store is located in the front of the building. However, videos like this one take you on a virtual tour. Enjoy!
