WHAT IS RAILROADING?

We are often asked to explain the textile term "railroading".
It simply means that the design has been sampled and displayed perpendicular to how it's woven. i.e. how it comes off the roll. For example our upholstery jacquard Khepresh is woven as per below:

Upholstery jacquard Khepresh

It has been “railroaded” within our samples and in all marketing collateral to illustrate the direction we believe it should be upholstered. See below:

Railroaded Khepresh design

 

A Khepresh cushion

For drapery, only wide width designs (300 cm) can be railroaded, as it allows curtains to be made without any vertical joins. This is referred to as a “continuous” fabric.

A continuous curtain can be made from 300cm wide fabric when the window height is under approximately 280 cm in height. This allows an extra 20cm for the curtain header and the bottom hem, this is an approximate guide only as it depends on the style of curtain choosen.

For example Lexington has a selvedge to selvedge repeat woven as per below.

Lexington selvedge to selvedge repeat

The correct direction to display Lexington as a curtain

A Lexington curtain