Siwd Mae!
When you go shopping to buy clothes do you ever stop to think about how they are made? That's what I aim to do with this blog. I will be talking about the skills and processes involved in making sustainable clothing, and why it makes them sustainable versus other types of production in the industry.
At Elin Manon all of our knitwear pieces are made by fully fashioned hand framed knitwear.
The Llia Knitted Co-ord Lounge Set. Fully Fashioned and Hand Framed from Pima Cotton
What is it?
Fully Fashioned Knitting is where the individual components are knitted to shape so they can be sewn to make the product, without cutting the fabric. A zero waste approach to producing knitwear. We only use what we need for each item. It is used more frequently by luxury and sustainable brands.
It is different to traditional methods of creating garments, where you lay the pattern pieces down on the fabric and cut them out, resulting in fabric scraps which can't be reused.
If you were to purchase a knitting pattern from a craft shop it would be a fully fashioned knitting pattern, as you increase and decrease the stitches to create your desired shape.
It takes years of practice for knitwear designers to learn how to design knitting patterns. The more you know, the more intricate the designs can be. Fully fashioned knitwear can be made by hand, manual machine knit (hand framed) or by industrial automatic machines (though these can still take time to create detailed knits) See this example below:
Designed by Richard Malone, Winner of the WoolMark Prize. Designers will usually work hand in hand with an experienced Knitwear Technician to achieve these knitted results
But what about in our every day lives? How do you know if a piece of knitwear is fully fashioned?
Most items that are fully fashioned are also sewn together using a linker, it creates a different type of seam using a chain stitch. If you were to take one of these jumpers, and take it apart, you would be able to unravel the knit completely to create something new
Look out for these seams when shopping:
Knit with chain stitch linked seams.
If they are overlocked together they are more likely to have been cut and sewn together from piece knitted fabric.
Overlocked Seam
Fully fashioned knitwear doesn't automatically make something sustainable but it does have a massive impact on the amount of waste generated by the textile industry.
Mabli in the Tonwen Ripple Fully Fashioned Jumper
Thanks for stopping by!
Hwyl fawr
Elin
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