The textile plot is a parallel coordinate plot in which the ordering, locations and scales of the axes are simultaneously chosen so that the connecting lines, each of which represents a case, are aligned as horizontally as possible. Plots of this type can accommodate numerical data as well as ordered or unordered categorical data, or a mixture of these different data types. The textile plot is also designed to make it easier for the user to interpret a given data set, with various attributes of the data being displayed as well as missing value information. Knots and parallel wefts within the textile plot also aid in the visual interpretation of the data. Several practical examples are presented which illustrate the potential usefulness of the textile plot as an aid to the visualisation of multivariate data.