One Reply so Far (thank you Warehouse & Co)
From our poll earlier this week, I sent the top questions to multiple loopwheel manufacturers. I wanted to share one as I wait for more. This was provided by Warehouse & Co which I thought was informative:
"The fact that traditional loopwheel knitting machines still exist and remain in operation in Japan today is, we believe, largely because there were people in the industry who recognized the unique characteristics and functionality of the fabrics they produced.
When more modern sinker knitting machines were introduced in Japan, many knitting factories moved away from loopwheel machines in favor of the greater production efficiency offered by the newer machines.
However, there were also people who understood, through comparing the fabrics produced by the two methods, that loopwheel fabrics had particular characteristics in terms of elasticity, resilience, and resistance to bursting. It was through the efforts of people who recognized these qualities that some of the old loopwheel machines were preserved rather than discarded.
That said, at WAREHOUSE, we do not believe that “loopwheel” alone defines a great sweatshirt.
It is similar to the way we approach vintage jeans. Reproducing the fabric alone is not enough. The yarn, the construction of the fabric, and the sewing must all work together before we can consider the reproduction complete.
When we began trying to reproduce the qualities we found in exceptional vintage sweatshirts, we needed to recreate fabrics that could shrink considerably, stretch through wear, and develop the twisting and distortion that are characteristic of certain vintage garments.
In pursuing those characteristics, loopwheel knitting was something we could not avoid.
But what happens before the yarn even reaches the loopwheel machine is equally important.
The construction of the yarn itself matters. We use single yarns twisted in one direction, and the yarn counts used for the face yarn, middle yarn, and backing yarn are also extremely important. The combination of these different yarns has a major influence on the character and behavior of the finished fabric.
The sewing is equally important. Details such as the needle spacing of the sewing machines used at the time, as well as the stitch count, are also part of reproducing a vintage sweatshirt accurately.
For this reason, we see the loopwheel machine as one important part of a much larger process.
The yarn, the knitting, and the sewing all contribute to the final garment. We do not believe that simply using a loopwheel machine automatically makes a sweatshirt superior.
Rather, in our case, when we studied original vintage sweatshirts and attempted to reproduce not only their appearance but also the way their fabrics shrink, stretch, twist, age, and change through wear, the loopwheel machine became an essential part of achieving the result we were looking for.
Regarding the current situation of loopwheel knitting factories and the future of the machines themselves, I am sorry that we cannot give you an appropriate technical answer. We are a clothing manufacturer rather than a knitting-machine manufacturer or knitting mill, so we would prefer not to speculate on matters outside our direct expertise."