There are only a few knitting machines that can automatically do everything required to knit a complete garment, and they are large, heavy and extremely expensive. I'm aiming to trade off speed against size and cost to create something akin to a 3D printer for knitwear.
I've been testing out various ideas for six months now, and I think I have a workable concept, but there's still a lot of work to do!
https://www.moma.org/collection/works/100361 is a start, but there are other examples. Rei Kawakubo also did a collection called Square based on a similar concept. Yoji Yamamoto did a couple as well, there were a few moments in Japanese fashion that would work extremely well with a full garment knitter.
These pictures are the top level concepts, but the rest of the collections if you can still find them have more examples.
I’ve been on a hunt for a perfect blank t shirt. After trying 10 different models either the fit or the material is not up to my standard.
I wonder how automatable manufacturing of T-Shirts is. Not sure if it is possible to automate sewing on a collar for example. Plus from what I’ve read a tubular t shirt is worse than front and back sewed at the sides cause it tends to stretch and rotate in one direction with time.
Anyway: continuous knitting is more automatable but introduces limitations just like injection moulding does. But the benefit of having a perfect fit might outweigh those limitations.
What’s your take on all of this?
Particularly for finer gauge knits, I believe warp knitting is often used, where many strands are knit at once, crossing back and forth instead of a single strand going round and round (weft knitting) so there shouldn't be any issues with stretching or rotating. There's no reason a T-shirt can't be automated like anything else as far as I know, but I'm not in the industry at all.
I view it much like 3D printing, it's a tool that is well suited for some materials and tasks, but quite poor for others. Working around its constraints is part of the fun!