New Year - New Fabric

Bamboo is the new eco-fabric.

Grown Organically without using any pesticides or fertilizers, as the plants natural anti-fungal antibacterial agent “Bamboo Kuhn” means it is seldom attacked by pests or pathogens.

Bamboo textiles are made of Moso Bamboo– not the type of Bamboo that Panda's eat, so you have no need to worry about using the Panda's food supply.Bamboo is in fact a very fast growing grass and can be harvested every 3 or 4 years and then renews itself without need or replanting.

In its cultivation it uses far less water than cotton.The yield from an acre of bamboo is 10 times greater than the yield you get from cotton. It is a fully sustainable crop.

There are some Bamboo/Cotton mixes now on offer, but why go for a mixture when you can have 100% bamboo, with all it's benefits? Bamboo Fabric is Hypoallergenic and biodegradable. In cultivation it absorbs more CO2 and produces 35% more oxygen than an equivalent area of trees.Bamboo fabric is ideal for bed linen. It is a wonderful light and soft fabric, softer than cotton with a silk like drape and a beautiful silky lustre. It is a very strong fabric and with care will last many years.

This is the first 100% Bamboo Bedding range in the UK available in all bed sizes both for the UK and international sizes. Duvet Covers and Oxford Pillow Cases feature our natural bamboo leaf design print.

There are three great colourways - Coffee ,Jade and Natural White they are beautiful bedding for any home. Check it out, you may well like it! Follow the link from our Satin page

Have you got the right bed?

The Sleep Council offer a lot of advise on how to get a good nights sleep. The following information is just one section,taken from their web site. Well worth reading!

Buying the right bed in the first place is one thing. But, all
too often people don't notice the gradual deterioration of
their bed until the level of discomfort is quite extreme
- and think of how much time you must have spent in a
less than perfect bed by the time it reaches that
stage. It’s not just the bed’s deterioration through use
that you hould be aware of, either.

Our own individual needs and preferences change over
time, too. Changes in lifestyles or physical conditions
also affect our bed requirements.
Your mattress lifespan for offering optimum support
and comfort will vary depending on its quality, its
frequency of use, the wear and tear it undergoes (sadly,
a heavier person will wear out a bed more quickly than
a lighter one, a couple more quickly than a lone person),
and how well it’s been looked after. As a rough guide however,
even a good quality mattress, in normal use, should not
be expected to last more than about 10 years

The Sleep Council have devised a simple bed MOT (Mattress
Obsolescence Test), which they recommend should be done every
year after the first three-five years.
If you answer ‘Yes’ to three questions, you're not getting the best
possible night’s sleep. Five or more ‘Yes’ answers and it’s time to
buy a new bed.
Yes No
■ ■ Is the bed 10 years old or more?
■ ■ Do you ever wake up with neck or back ache?
■ ■ Is the mattress cover torn or stained?
■ ■ When lying in bed, do you feel springs or ridges
beneath the surface?
■ ■ When moving in bed do you hear creaks,
crunches or other suspicious noises?
■ ■ Do you and your partner roll towards each other
unintentionally?
■ ■ Is the bed too small to give an undisturbed
night’s sleep?
■ ■ Is the divan or base uneven or sagging?
■ ■ Are the legs and castors worn out?
■ ■ Would it be embarrassing if the neighbours saw
the bed without its covers?
To go the the Sleep Council web page, click here

Leather Bed Sheets and Bedding

Ever thought of sleeping on Leather?

We use it for shoes, boots, gloves and jackets, so why not sheets?

I have never used them myself, but I am told that you know you're
at the top of the lifestyle ladder when you home is enhanced with real leather sheets and bedding. They are soft and seductive, with that unmistakable Leather aroma.

A colleague make these from 100% top grade Leather, with hides sourced from Northern Italy. The quality is superb and the finished products are without doubt the finest available anywhere.

To have a look at some photos of the items click here , then choose "UK and Europe" and click on Leather on left hand side..

Satin sheets

Satin fabric dates back to the Middle Ages.
The finish or surface effect is achieved by the weaving technique.
During the early part of the last century it was made mainly
from Cotton,before the introduction of Man-made fibres. Nowadays it is mainly made from polyester, which gives it an easy care finish.
However, not all Polyester satin fabrics are equal!

The information below was taken from various publications and will give you some idea of the advantages of using Satin bed sheets
and pillowcases.

Cosmetic surgeons to the stars, twin brothers Dr. Roberto and Dr. Maurizio Viel, passionately believe you can reverse the aging process without going under a knife. “Sleep your way to beauty-avoid skin wrinkles by switching your pillowcases to silk or satin, as they minimize wrinkles.” Belfast Telegraph. Feb. 10, 2007. Daily Features article – “Discover a Younger You
.... To prevent premature wrinkling, use satin or silk pillowcases which will also protect your hair from breaking if you do a lot of tossing and turning.” Fit Magazine. Mar. 2005.

Skin expert Dr Dennis Gross, who also founded the company MD Skin care, said: 'Persistently pressing our faces into a pillow causes trauma to the skin. Over time, this is aggravated by the friction of a cotton pillowcase and can create permanent creases as our collagen breaks down..Metro UK -Satin sleep will ‘beat age’ Monday, December 3, 2007

Satin benefits hair also. Two very important elements are needed for healthy hair - air and moisture. By sleeping on satin pillowcase your scalp will breathe and allow hair to retain moisture. Frictional damage while sleeping will be minimized. Ladies hair salons in America, unlike UK, always stock Satin Pillowcases.

Satin sheets are good for people with movement difficulties in bed, as the smooth surface makes it easier to turn over.
Follow the link from here. You may like what you see.

Electric beds

At one time Electric or Adjustable beds were used by the elderly or people with movement difficulties. Not anymore! Now, you get a choice of beds from 75cm wide single mattress,up to 200cm wide(6' 6")bed with two separate mattresses, both electrically adjustable. This means that you can sit up in bed at the touch of a button, read the paper, have a coffee, watch the TV (with the sound suitably muted) without disturbing your partner.

The trouble is the standard fitted sheets will not stay in place when the mattress is moved. They were never designed to. To get over this problem, our sheets are tailored to accommodate the movement and yet remain in place. The same tailoring is required for mattress covers and valances, everything made to measure. However, that’s what our workforce does best! With the correct valance, the lifting mechanism is hidden even when the mattress is tilted upwards.
Follow this link for more information and prices

Round Beds and Bedding

Round beds are selling well at the moment, so we get orders for bed linens to fit. Some people buy the bed and then think about how they are going to cover it.

A round fitted sheet is easy enough to get, but what about the quilt and the quilt cover? Use the old king size one that you already have? Not really! Why spend good money on a Round bed if the duvet is not going to be Round also. Besides, a rectangular duvet hanging over the round bed is not very comfortable. This requires a shaped duvet which will drape over the bed and still leave somewhere at the top for your head. Likewise the duvet covers.

And what about the pillows? You can't have square or rectangular pillows either. So, we shaped the pillows to compliment the perimeter of the bed and obviously the pillowcases to match.

So far we have the bed, fitted sheet, duvet, duvet cover, pillows and pillowcases. What about the top sheet to put between you and the duvet? Saves washing the quilt cover every week! For this we make a semi-fitted, which means that it is shaped and fitted at the bottom to hold it in place, but like a flat sheet at the top.
To check it out click on this link

Bed Time stories

Someone once remarked that we spend most of our life either on our feet or on our back; therefore we should wear the best shoes and have the best bed to lie on. You’ve got the bed, now how about the bedding?

People always ask about the number of threads in the Egyptian cotton. Some ask if we have 600 thread count or even 800 threads! Does it mean anything anymore? Not unless you know the yarn count also. Look at it this way, are you better off with 200 threads of quality yarn or 1,000 threads of rubbish? A high thread count does not mean a better fabric.

A plain weave fabric with 200 single Threads of Egyptian Cotton will stand numerous repeat laundering, making it ideally suitable for hotel use. Sateen on the other hand can have 400 threads or more. This has a different construction and the number of threads in the warp is doubled to get the lovely sateen finish. However it has no more intersections and will have a shorter life span than a plain weave.

One of the finest linen weavers of Egyptian Cotton in the UK was Peter Reed Fabrics. A Reed fabric was and still is the Roll Royce of Bed linen and holds the Royal Warranty. The sheeting was supplied to the best hotels in England. The fabric is still available today but sadly after five generations, no longer woven in Lancashire. A booklet produced by the company, explains that the higher the number of interlocked threads in a given area of cloth, the greater the friction holding the threads together and consequently the stronger the cloth. Cloths made from single threads are therefore used in sheeting and will stand repeated laundering.

How do you get 800 threads in a plain fabric? I have had fabric offered from overseas suppliers with 700-800 thread count. I asked if they could explain the construction as I could only count 200 ends. That’s correct they said, but the individual threads were made up of three or sometimes four thinner threads twisted together (in other words rubbish) so, if you multiply the 200 threads that you can count by the 4 that you cannot see, then you get 800! Egyptian Cotton is famous for its ability to spin very fine and still have strength. Why then would it be necessary to twist multiple ends together? I leave this for you to guess. Unfortunately, some of the Egyptian Cotton around today will never have been anywhere near the banks of the Nile.

..oh yes, about the Bed and the shoes, I have a waterbed and prefer Grenson Moccasins!

At Yorkshiremillshops.com we offer a range of products and services online, from Bespoke bed linen, to Villas in Spain.
Our bed linen is made high up in the Pennine hills, in what was once the heart of the textile industry. Here you will find an old brick mill where the workers once started their day at 6 o'clock in the morning, before the advent of automation and high-speed machines.

Come and see what we offer. You may be pleasantly surprised