A visit to Tech Confex, part 1
A while ago I saw an ad in my Facebook feed which showed an expo of machines used in the textile industry in Poland. I thought it would be interesting to go since they mentioned that quilting would be one of the things some of their machines show.
I think the easiest way will be just to show some pictures with some narration.
We left about 7:25 am to head to Lodz, a town more in the center of Poland. It was about a 2.5 hour drive.
We knew we were getting close when we saw this vehicle parked nearby. We were looking for parking.
We got there, exchanged our printed ticket (free) off the internet for some wrist bands and went on inside after a quick visit to the bathroom.
When we first walked in to the expo hall - this is what we saw -
This first machine was a simply amazing cutting machine!
It wasn't overly crowded, though it did seem like more people were coming a little later (about noon-ish).
If you looked a little to the left, you saw the overview of the hall.
The cutting machines were massive. They were geared for the textile industry, though, as these were machines for manufacturing clothing and other types of things like industrial things - tarps, tents, etc.
I looked around for the Juki display as I figured they might have a long arm quilting machine there.
This is a quilting machine - it was quilting these two pieces of fabric that had been cut in the shape of vests. It was just not a quilting machine as I knew it!
Unfortunately for me, over in this display there was no long arm as I know it. However, there were some incredible sewing machines! Wow. These are amazing machines - and sometimes very, very big! Very long arms!
Let me show you!
This is a massive machine!
This was just a large sewing machine. We saw multiple machines that did buttons or other specialized things. I tried to look for machines that at least looked like they just "sewed a straight line."
My husband said, "Now here's a long arm!" I agreed, but since it isn't very high, there still isn't a lot of room in it for a quilt!
Here's another machine with a very long arm.
Then we saw a quilting machine controlled by CNC computer numerical control - and was huge. My husband and son teased that this would really quilt a nice big quilt completely flat. I assured them that it wasn't big enough. This is in three parts. Here's the machine from this angle.
This is the back side of the machine - and I'm sure it isn't as big as the typical queen size quilts I make.
Here they had it quilting the name of the company - white on white. They really should have put in black thread for the purposes of demo!
Another quilting machine - it's big, and low and long and not at all what I was looking for!
There were many machine brands I've never heard of including this one called Typical.
I'm going to assume it was named by a non native speaker of English.
I can't imagine that any native speaker of English would name their company something so "ordinary".
Another huge cutting machine. They use knives. Think of a Brother Scan 'n Cut on steroids!
This was one of the largest machines I saw there. It was electronic and could be set as to what kind of fabric you were sewing. No, I didn't even ask "How much?"
This is a sure fire way to get evenly spaced quilting lines -- at least two of them! Twin needles!
There were also some amazing embroidery machines.
By the time I saw this quilting machine, I was despairing of finding anything even remotely like I was looking for! This one quilted in circles and in straight lines.
And sorry to leave you with a cliff hanger - but that's all for today!
I'll continue with the rest of the pictures next week. That's all for now!
I have a lot more pictures to show you but figured that 20 is enough for one blog post.
Have a great day wherever you are reading this!
Don't forget to check out what my sis for you over in the store! Here's a sample.