Friday, September 11, 2009

RJR Visit

What an exciting day today ! My friends and I went for a tour of the famous RJR fabric company. It is located only 5 minutes from my home and Mr John Durnell, Vice President of RJR organised a very well documented visit of the plant.

RJR was created by Robert, the father, James and Richard, his sons in 1978 and John Durnell purchased his share of the company 18 years ago after James had retired.
Among many others, Robyn Pandolph, Jinny Beyer, Lynette Jensen and Susan Branch are designers working with RJR.


This is the room where they have the sample boards for marketing the collections.


A sneak peek of Susan Branch new baby line of fabric, which will be available at the end of the year.



We were like kids in a candy store ...!!! So much fabric in front of our eyes made us drool ...





Here, they put the kits and charm packs together






RJR sold 30 000 yards of the following fabric (Potatoes) in the last 3 years !
Everybody wanted to make this microwaveable potatoe bag and used this print !
How many lbs of potatoes were sold during the same period ...?
If you can answer this question ... good for you !






The fabric is mainly manufactured in Japan from premium grey goods Egyptian cotton.
It arrives from Japan on big rolls.



And then, the fabric is wrapped around the bolts




It is then shrink wrapped to get ready for shipping around the world




This is the little designer corner


And the icing on the cake for this great tour was when John gave to each one of us a
big charm pack !




What a great visit !!
















13 comments:

  1. I'm SO jealous! What a great trip. How are my new friends, Carolee and Cynthia?

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  2. I'm very surprised they let you take photos. But I'm really glad!

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  3. And purples and greens, your fav!

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  4. What a great day - I loved seeing the pictures of processes that we don't usually get to know about! Thanks for sharing. Becky

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  5. Great photos Catherine. I'll send you my photos when I get a chance. My head is still spinning...all that yummy fabric!

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  6. I will tell you more about the frog and the quilt in a coming post. I am glad to share my obssession with fabric and threads !

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  7. I like the informative comments. GREAT JOB MOM YOU ROCK!

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  8. This is all really neat. You blow me away!

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  9. How wonderful to tour the factory! I got to see the Hoffman factory in south Orange County a few years ago, and it was amazing. Thanks for posting the pics!

    Sherilyn

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  10. How wonderful to tour the factory! I got to see the Hoffman factory in south Orange County a few years ago, and it was amazing. Thanks for posting the pics!

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