Garments can be manufactured by 3 different routes, some of which are more suitable to wool products than others.

• Fully Fashioned (Shaped Knitwear)
• Cut and Sew
• Complete Garment

Fully Fashioned Shaped Knitwear

Shaped knitwear is engineered to size and shaped at the point of knitting; it is very distinctive and easily identifiable by the “fashioning marks” which normally run parallel to the garment seams.

The welts and cuffs are knitted as an integral part of the panel, leaving only the collar to be added during garment make-up. 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. 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

Cut and Sew

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).

The benefits of the cut and sew route include; ease and speed of knitting of fabric, total consistency of cut panel sizes and relative ease of garment make-up. The downside is that the seams have to be over-locked prior to sewing or linking to prevent the exposed stitches from laddering. This produces a seam that is relatively large, bulky and unsightly.

The cut and sew route is not widely used for wool knitwear production, the material wastage (up to 25%) and perceived “lower quality” image makes it less appealing.

Complete Garment Knitting

The garments are essentially the same as normal fully fashioned, except there are no real seams holding the garment together. The “complete garment” is made by knitting the front panel, the back panel, back and sleeves simultaneously as three fabric tubes on the machine; 1 large tube in the middle (body) and 2 smaller ones at either side (sleeves). These “tubes” are made up of a continuous spiral of yarn that has been formed into stitches and each of them is being knit at the same time with a separate cone of yarn.

These tubular panels are shaped just like any other piece of fully fashioned knitwear and eventually all 3 panels become “one” to create the finished product. All welts, cuffs and collars are knit at the same time and hence the garment comes off the knitting machine almost ready to wear.

Virtually all of the work being by the knitting machine itself means that there are large labour cost savings.