I discovered my love for sweaters and sweater construction while working on my Master’s degree at Washington State University. My first professional opportunity was as an assistant technical designer at Nordstrom. I was working with the sweaters for my brand and was given more responsibility than was typical for this position. Working there taught me ins and outs of the industry that just couldn’t be learned in school. When I was ready, I left the company and started teaching part-time to facilitate my move toward starting my own company creating knit downs and sweater samples for smaller design companies.
Sweater types
There are two main kinds of sweaters. Full fashioning and cut and sew. Full-fashioning is the process of making a sweater that is created in the pieces that it will be assembled in. It takes less yarn, but is considered a sweater type with a higher skill level, as the sweater will need to be assembled on a linking machine.
Cut-and-sew sweaters are knit in large panels and cut out like with a woven garment and sewn on a machine; this is what has most been used in the U.S. Cut-and-sew sweaters tend to be very simple in stitch and overall design, which is not the where sweater trends have moved (I believe this was a fatal flaw in the US sweater industry). As designs have become more complicated, companies that create fashionable sweaters have had to go offshore to create their designs. These manufacturing companies will often provide knitdowns, which are large swatches with stitch designs that can be used in a design, as well as new sweater samples that are created in-house.
