Circular Knit Fabric Mills

What Circular Knitting Is

In circular knitting the needles are set in a ring and the fabric forms as a continuous tube, course spiralling upon course as the cylinder turns. The Circular Knitting Definition states it formally, and the general Knitting Definition and Knitting History pages give the construction its background: a knit is a fabric of interlocked loops, and the circular machine is simply that loop-forming organised for volume. The tube can be slit and finished flat, like most jersey, or kept tubular for seamless-body garments - the T-shirt with no side seams is circular knitting worn exactly as it left the machine.

Speed and economy are the construction's fame. A modern circular machine with dozens of yarn feeders produces in an hour what a weaving loom produces in a day of comparable cloth, and by changing cams, needles and yarns the same machine family turns out single jersey, rib, interlock, fleece, terry and jacquard knits. Gauge - needles per inch - sets the fineness: coarse gauges for fleece and sweatshirting, fine gauges for the smooth jerseys of quality T-shirts and underwear. Diameter sets the tube width, which is why circular knit fabric widths are quoted the way they are, and why a mill's machine park - its range of gauges and diameters - is the first thing a knit buyer asks about.

What Circular Knits Are Bought For

T-shirts are the emblem, but the tube's output covers most of the casual wardrobe and a good part of the rest: polo shirts, underwear, sportswear, leggings, dresses, baby clothes, sweatshirts and fleece, plus tubular goods from socks' cousins to medical and industrial sleeves. The fabric's virtues are the knit's virtues - stretch, recovery, softness, breathability - delivered at a price per metre no woven can approach for equivalent comfort cloth. Its limits are equally structural: circular jersey curls at cut edges, can twist and torque in wear if the yarn was not balanced, and offers little of the woven cloth's stability, which is why the two constructions divide the wardrobe between them as they do.

Specifying circular knit means naming the construction (jersey, rib, interlock), the fiber and blend, the gauge or finished weight in grams per square metre, the tube or slit width, and the finish - bio-polish, moisture management and anti-pilling treatments are standard offers. Torque and shrinkage results on the mill's own test data matter more than any of it, since a knit that spirals after washing is a return waiting to happen. Around this directory, About Knitted Fabrics covers the knit family as a whole, the Fabric Directory hub covers the section, and the trade runs through the Machinery directory and Clothing Industry Factories.

Using This Directory

The listings below are the complete set for this category as Apparel Search carries it: six companies - Carolina Apparel Group, Lincoln Textile Sales and Safer Textile Processing in the United States, Lu Her Knitting Factory in Taiwan, SGS Interknits in India and Supreme Textile Industries - each linked to its own profile in the Fabric Mills by Name section. No listing has been added or removed. The American weighting of this list is a small piece of trade history: circular knitting for the domestic T-shirt and underwear trade was long a United States mill industry, and this directory preserves that record as listed. The wider trade runs through Yarn Factories, Fabric Retail, Fabric Wholesalers, the Fibers Directory and Fabric Definitions, plus Fashion Industry News, Clothing Industry Employment and Conversion Charts. Thank you for using the Apparel Search Fabric Mill Directory.

Circular Knit Fabric Mills Listed in This Directory