Introduction to fully fashioned knitwear

Introduction to fully fashioned knitwear

Knit garments: Knit garments are basically three types:

1. Cut and sew knit garments.
2. Fully Fashioned shape knitwear.
3. Complete knitted garments.

#Cut and Sew knit garments:

The cut and sew technique is by far the simplest method of garment construction whereby individual panel shapes are cut to size from panels (V bed or flat bed) or from a long length of fabric or cloth (circular knitting machines).
Benefits of Cut & Sew Knitting:
The benefits of the cut and sew route includes the followings:

1)      Ease speed of knitting of fabric

2)       Total consistency of cut panel sizes and relative ease of garment make-up.

3)      The downside is that the seams have to be over-locked prior to sewing or linking to prevent the exposed stitches from laddering.

4)      This produces a seam that is relatively large, bulky and unsightly.

Disadvantages of Cut & Sew Knitting:

1)      The cut and sew route is not widely used for wool knitwear production

2)       The material wastage (up to 25%) and perceived “lower quality” image makes it less appealing.

#Fully Fashioned Shaped Knitwear:

1)      Shaped knitwear is engineered to size and shaped at the point of knitting.

2)       It is very distinctive and easily identifiable by the “fashioning marks” which normally run parallel to the garment seams.

3)      The garment panels are assembled using “cup seaming” and “linking” where usually the garment sides, sleeves and underarms are cup seamed and the shoulders and collars are linked.

4)      The difference between linking and seaming is that with linking a stitch per stitch joint results whereas cup seaming stitches the edges of the fabrics together.

Fully Fashioned Knitting Machine:
Fully-fashioned knitting machines are flat knitting machines that produce custom pre-shaped pieces of a knitted garment. Instead of knitting a whole rectangular sheet of fabric, instructions from a knit pattern on a punch card or computer file guide a fully-fashioned knitting machine's needles to add or drop stitches to create custom two dimensional shapes appropriate to the desired finished garment structure. The pieces emerge from the machine ready to be sewn together.

#Complete Knitted Garments:

Complete garment knitting is a next-generation form of fully-fashioned knitting that adds the capability of making a 3-dimensional full garment. Unlike other fully-fashioned knitting, where the shaped pieces must still be sewn together, finished complete knitted garments do not have seams. The knitting machines' computerized instructions direct movement of hundreds of needles to construct and connect several tubular knitted forms to create a complete garment in a single production step.

Advantages of Complete Garment Knitting:

The complete garment system's advantages lie in:
1) A further reduction in materials beyond even fully-fashioned production by eliminating seam allowances.
2) Faster time to market by eliminating the need for sewing any components. These factors increase cost-effectiveness (especially important when using high-performance materials such as aramids for composites).
3) One might also argue that cutting down on wasted by-product selvage makes complete garment better for the environment.
Two companies manufacture complete garment knitting machines: Shima Seiki and Stoll.

Name of Fully fashioned knit garments:

1)      Sweater

2)      Cardigan

3)      Tights

4)      Stockings

5)      Lingerie, etc