The Sewing Place

For Sale & Wanted => I saw this & I thought you may be interested! => Topic started by: Ohsewsimple on August 06, 2019, 14:10:37 PM

Title: Inside the Factory
Post by: Ohsewsimple on August 06, 2019, 14:10:37 PM
Tonight on BBC2.   They are looking at how Barbour jackets are made.
Thought this might be interesting. I will be out so it’s on record.
Title: Re: Inside the Factory
Post by: charlotte on August 06, 2019, 16:12:27 PM
Ooooh just as I'm about to start my waxed canvas raincoat. How exciting!
Title: Re: Inside the Factory
Post by: SkoutSews on August 06, 2019, 18:18:58 PM
Thanks, I'll be recording it too. I love these programmes, they're fascinating!
Title: Re: Inside the Factory
Post by: Surest1tch on August 06, 2019, 21:38:16 PM
I forgot it was on but it's on again Sunday evening at 7:00pm if anyone else missed it.
Title: Re: Inside the Factory
Post by: sewingj on August 07, 2019, 11:20:01 AM
Very interesting - but I can't bear Gregg Wallace!
Title: Re: Inside the Factory
Post by: Manuela on August 08, 2019, 14:55:55 PM
I watched it on iPlayer. It was very interesting to compare the Barbour factory with the factories I used to work with/in in China (and Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar....). The differences already start in the cutting section....
Title: Re: Inside the Factory
Post by: Silver Rose on August 08, 2019, 15:58:12 PM
Not a Greg Wallace fan either, I was amazed at the speed of the sewing machines and the skill of the machinists, an interesting hour.
Title: Re: Inside the Factory
Post by: Ohsewsimple on August 08, 2019, 16:32:42 PM
It was fascinating to watch.  But I think I would be bored stiff doing the same thing day in and day out.  Not exactly creative I know but that’s how they do it so well and so fast. 
Title: Re: Inside the Factory
Post by: HenriettaMaria on August 09, 2019, 12:30:14 PM
Watched this last night.  Really interesting.  My ears pricked up when they mentioned Dundee, which I've just returned from.  I wasn't aware Dundee still had any textile industry left.  I did wonder how they managed to do all that to fabric and not get any creases in it - now I know - it's never, ever folded!

In about 1990 I visited the Kinnarps furniture factories in Sweden (one does chairs and the other does everything else that doesn't include upholstery).  They had a similar fabric cutting table arrangement to Barbour but the cutting out was done by computer-controlled machine, not by a bloke with a saw and a chainmail glove!  I was surprised it was so manual.

I loved the welt pocket making machine - removes a lot of guesswork - and I suppose the laser guidelines remove the need for unnecessary piercing of fabric prior to final stitching.

While I can see the economic appeal of Adam Smith-style working arrangements, it would bore me to tears to spend my day doing nothing but sewing on pockets!
Title: Re: Inside the Factory
Post by: Ohsewsimple on August 09, 2019, 14:06:15 PM
Oh yes the welt pocket machine. Amazing!   DH asked how long it took me.  Well, depends how long it takes me to unpick it first time round.  :)
Title: Re: Inside the Factory
Post by: Nevis5 on August 09, 2019, 16:01:46 PM
I watched the programme too, was fascinated by the welt pocket making.  But, oh, Gregg Wallace!  I wanted to slap him  :fish: :fish:
Title: Re: Inside the Factory
Post by: snoozi soozi on August 12, 2019, 11:39:02 AM
I watched this last night, quite interesting. I love the fact that they're human-stitched rather than robots. The waterproofing process is fascinating.
Title: Re: Inside the Factory
Post by: Ryomaden on September 16, 2019, 11:04:51 AM
Just watched this, I was laughing at the start when Greg described the cotton rolls (weighing 160kg) as the equivalent weight of 'two Greg Wallace's'.... Come on Greg, 80kg?  :S I think you may be fibbing  :D
Title: Re: Inside the Factory
Post by: Elnnina on September 16, 2019, 13:12:13 PM
I, too, recorded this and have only recently caught up with it - absolutely fascinating but I agree with the others I would not like to be on a production line sewing the same things day after day and so many per day - I much prefer making a garment totally from scratch.  It as an interesting story seeing how the fabric was dealt with from the beginning and then through all the various processes to the completion of the jacket but the noise levels were horrendous.
Title: Re: Inside the Factory
Post by: Surest1tch on September 16, 2019, 13:41:23 PM
I watched the programme too, was fascinated by the welt pocket making.  But, oh, Gregg Wallace!  I wanted to slap him  :fish: :fish:

You and me both, his stupid questions and laughing where there's no need to spoil the programmes.
I've seen the series but if you haven't the Harrison bed factory is another interesting one if you can ignore the Wallace!
Title: Re: Inside the Factory
Post by: Greybird on September 16, 2019, 22:39:00 PM
I can't stand Greg Wallace either, but even worse is the Ruth woman. I would have enjoyed the programmes where people lived in the same way they did in historical times but I couldn't watch them because of her.
Title: Re: Inside the Factory
Post by: HenriettaMaria on September 17, 2019, 19:17:10 PM
….the Ruth woman. I would have enjoyed the programmes where people lived in the same way they did in historical times but I couldn't watch them because of her.

She really is awful, isn't she?  I had a conversation with a guy called Stuart Peachey, who is the historian behind the Green Valley Farms historical village project and an authority on working class clothing of the late C16th and early C17th.  A TV company did some filming there a few years back (I recall it went out as an early evening series, although I can't remember which channel) and she was just odd.  She would rock up, do a piece to camera and vanish again without getting in any way involved or discussing what she was doing with the staff there.  Consequently, they were trying to film activities completely out of season when the weather was too cold/hot/dry/wet or the foliage was too green/absent altogether.