At Bridge & Stitch, the majority of projects that we have worked on in the past consist of jersey and woven products as well as cut and sew knitted garments. With a database of over 160 factories, which continues to grow, over 20 of these factories specialise in knitwear manufacturing which can offer fully fashioned knitted garments. So why is it that we rarely produce knitwear?
Pointelle Knitting
Knitwear is a completely different kettle of fish from woven and jersey products. Over the years we have tried to educate our clients and readers about the manufacturing process – discussing tech packs, pattern cutting and fabric sourcing, to name a few of our clothing manufacturing services. Knitwear however works very differently and does not require patterns and grading in the same way and rather than sourcing fabric, you source yarn.
Fully Fashioned Knitwear
When studying fashion design, textiles and knitwear at university, to the novice, it probably sounds like all three of these subjects would come under the same course. This however is not the case. Textiles concentrate mainly on surface decoration, fashion concentrates on woven and jersey garment construction and knitwear does exactly what it says on the tin. The courses rarely interconnect during your studying years. At Bridge & Stitch, the majority of employees have come from a Fashion Design background or similar. This means our knowledge of cut and sew projects including woven and jersey is outstanding. It also means that our understanding of knitwear is not so outstanding. We have though been working over the last year to increase our knowledge in this area so that we can just as confidently offer this service, as any other.
After all, the UK produces some of the best quality knitwear products in the world! Italy and Japan, in particular, cry out for Made in Britain knitwear products. This is highlighted by the internationally renowned John Smedley who leads the way in the knitwear revolution, with their strapline ‘The World’s Finest Knitwear’. Established in 1784, they are the oldest manufacturing factory in the world and are truly inspiring. Click here to find out more about this fascinating knitwear brand.
The first unisex jumper – John Smedley
So what do we now know about Knitwear?
- The first question any factory will ask is the gauge of the machine you require to make your garment. Every knitwear factory has different gauge machines that generally range from between 5 – 7gg through to 10 – 12gg. The lower the gauge, the heavier the garment. From our database, we certainly have more factories that specialise in heavier knitwear pieces but we can work across both heavy and fine knits.
10gg and 12gg knitting machines, what yarns would you like to use? Some factories will source their own yarns and some will expect you to supply these to the factory. Yarns are usually imported from Europe, and just like the gauge machines, different factories specialise in different yarns. Acrylic tends to be the cheapest type of yarn used, then viscose, cotton and standard wool blends are mid-range, and high-end yarns include cashmere and other expensive wool yarns. It would be very rare to find a knitwear factory that works with acrylic and cashmere as the yarns produce very different types of garments. Acrylic is used for cheap garments i.e. that scratchy Christmas jumper that you pull out once a year, to cottons and viscose blends which can produce your everyday basics through to your cashmere, dry clean only dress for special occasions.
Knitwear by Marc Jacobs Development – unlike cut and sew, knitwear does not require card or digital patterns. Instead, the yarn is spun into knitted fabric which in turn is immediately knitted into the shape of the garment required. This is all calculated on the knitting machines. Depending on the complexity of the style, development time can take around 12 hours. If a factory charges £30 per hour, this equals a development cost of £360.00. Each factory will charge differently and it is always worth asking how the factory works in regards to development before proceeding.
Cowl Neck Men’s Knitted Jumper – Quantities and minimum orders are purely determined by the yarn. When a factory buys the yarn from a supplier, the yarn supplier will have a minimum order that the factory can buy. The factory will then calculate the usage of yarn needed to make one of your garments and from here will give you a minimum order based on using up all the yarn that they have to buy. Quite rightly, the factory does not want to be left with one or two reels of yarn at the end of the production run. This means MOQs are not as straightforward as cut and sew and can vary from yarn type and colours chosen.
Striped Jumper Fully Fashioned – this means that the full garment is produced by shaping a knitted structure by increasing or decreasing the number of stitches. As the panels are more engineered than cut and sew, there is usually less material wastage. The edges of the panels are then linked together and often fully fashioned products are easy to spot due to the fully fashioned lines running away from the joins. This method is more labour intensive and is therefore more expensive but it is usually a sign of a good quality product.
Full Fashioned Cardigan
Finding the factory that is suitable for you is of the utmost importance for successfully achieving the product you want. I hope the above has now convinced you that we do know what we are talking about. We have also built up relationships with our knitwear factories who have been extremely helpful in educating us on the methods of knitwear and the capabilities of their factories.
Knitted Polo Shirt
A few weeks ago I visited one of these factories – they specialise in fine knitted garments, have a wealth of experience behind them and a room full of knitting machines. The images throughout this blog give a clear idea of the capabilities of this factory, previous clients they have worked with including Marc Jacobs and an idea of the minimum orders and yarns they can use. We would love to get more of our clients into knitwear products and support this side of the clothing industry in Britain, so please get in touch should you wish to include knitwear within your product range.
Cotton Blends Create Stripes
These garments show pre-dyed yarn which is knitted to create stripes. The cotton yarn is the bright stripes and adds colour to the garment. The grey, black and ecru stripes are a polyester viscose blend. This provides good thermal properties and softness.
Knitted cut and sew joggers
As well as offering fully fashioned garments, the factory can offer cut and sew knitted products or a combination of the two techniques. They are also well equipped to add a vast range of trims and decorations to garments.
