Method for forming chenille yarns and the chenille yarns produced thereby

A method of producing a finished chenille yarn comprising the steps of:

• a) knitting a warp knit fabric having a plurality of stitches formed by overlaps arranged in adjacent, longitudinally extending wales with transverse underlaps connecting the overlaps of adjacent wales, a binder material extending along the wales,
• b) slitting the fabric between adjacent wales thereby to define a plurality of precursor chenille yarns, each precursor chenille yarn including a wale of stitch overlaps and binder surrounded by an array of slit transverse underlaps;
• c) either before or after slitting, respectively heating the fabric or the precursor chenille yarns to activate the binder;
• and
• d) either during or after heating, imposing a tensile force on the fabric or the precursor chenille yarns either to form a discontinuous chain of beads of binder within the core or to break the binder within the core into a discontinuous chain of beads of binder, respectively,
• whereby a finished chenille yarn is formed in which the core of the finished chenille yarn is defined by the overlaps of the stitches and the pile of the finished chenille yarn is defined by the slit transverse underlaps, the pile of the finished chenille yarn being held to the core by one or more bead(s) of binder.