Pendleton Woolen Mills Installs New Jacquard Looms

August 5, 2015 | By Business Wire News

PORTLAND, Ore.

Pendleton Woolen Mills headquartered in Portland, Oregon, a globally celebrated American lifestyle brand, has added new jacquard looms to operations at the company’s original mill in Pendleton, Oregon. These Italian looms from Itema and Swiss jacquard machines from Staubli are equipped with the latest technology and provide high-speed performance.

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Jacquard Loom Machine at original mill in Pendleton, Oregon (Photo: Business Wire)

“These looms will improve quality, enhance design capability, add capacity and increase efficiency to produce the ‘Warranted To Be’ quality of Pendleton products and fabrics that the Brand is famous for,” said Charlie Bishop, Executive Vice-President of Manufacturing. “We are excited to partner with these two world-class companies to bring the world’s most advanced weaving technology to Pendleton, Oregon.”

Jacquard looms weave complex designs, angles and shapes, brocades, damask, matelasse, and three-dimensional fabrics. Jacquard blankets were the first items made by Pendleton Woolen Mills when the company opened in Pendleton, Oregon in 1909. The original jacquard looms required tedious manual setup that allowed for one new blanket creation per year. With today’s technology, producing a new jacquard blanket is improved from months to minutes, from the development of the computer-aided design to actual weaving. Jacquard looms, developed with binary logic, were the forerunners to the first digital computers.

Pendleton originally used jacquard looms to create blankets for American Indians living in Eastern Oregon, weaving symbols and utilizing colors that were important and preferred by the Native American culture in the region. Today, jacquard blankets are iconic staples of the brand and still the most popular product of Pendleton craftsmanship.

About Pendleton

Setting the standard for classic American style, Pendleton is a lifestyle brand recognized as a symbol of American heritage, authenticity and craftsmanship. With six generations of family ownership since 1863, the company recently celebrated 152 years of weaving fabrics in the Pacific Northwest. Known for fabric innovation, Pendleton owns and operates two of America’s remaining woolen mills, constantly updating them with state-of-the-art looms and eco-friendly technology. Inspired by its heritage, the company designs and produces apparel for men and women, blankets, home décor, and gifts. Pendleton is available through select retailers in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan, Korea and Australia; Pendleton stores; company catalogs; and direct-to-consumer channels including the Pendleton website, http://www.pendleton-usa.com.