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3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

oliver-charles.com

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Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#31

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

teiferer wrote: post #2

I understand the appeal of this tech to techies. It's so cool to automate knitting! Though it totally misses the point of actually knitting something, with your own hands. The time it takes, the details you need to think about, the skills you work on perfecting, the quiet evening on the sofa or in a cafe with friends, chatting and knitting away, all that goes into a piece of clothing that you've knitted. Letting a ma…

Knitting by hand is for fun, with a by product of getting clothes. No one does it to make all their clothes, it’s highly impractical in this day and age.

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#32

Post by tecleandor »

yorwba wrote: post #15
doctorhandshake wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is an uncharitable view of the information on offer. The linked page similarly brands the technique with a trademarked WHOLEGARMENT label, claiming it’s a world first, so it doesn’t seem a stretch to see how these folks got to claiming it’s novel and making a bit of a todo about how it’s different. It also seems to have some business model implications that on first approximation look less than favorable…

According to the Shima Seiki history page: https://www.shimaseiki.com/company/dna/history/ it was a world first in 1995. That doesn't make it novel anymore in 2026. I would nonetheless find it interesting to read an "ultimate guide" explaining how the knitting machines work, but this ain't it.

But the site doesn't say anything about being new, and in fact says it was invented in 1995:

  When Was 3D-Knitting Invented?

  The concept of 3D-knitting was first envisioned and then developed by the
  Japanese company SHIMA SEIKI. They launched their first WHOLEGARMENT knitting
  machine at the ITMA trade fair in 1995.

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#33

Post by tecleandor »

idiot900 wrote: post #30

This is an ad for a company that drop ships their product from another company that has made its business on offering production and fulfillment of canned (but customizable) 3D knit styles.

Are they dropshipping preexisting designs, or are they making custom orders to a knitting company?

Edit: totally sincere question, I don't know their process

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#34

Post by Perseids »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #26
_flux wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, a big part of produced clothing just goes straight to waste to begin with. If everything was created on-demand, it would minimize that kind of waste.

That would be great, a lot of clothes are made at sizes that don't sell very well and which get discounted, then discarded if they don't sell. However, made on demand will likely cost more, plus you can't fit items first. Unless they make items for fitting which you can then order to have manufactured. But yeah the main thing is that on-demand can never compete with mass production even if a big part of the mass prod…

> on-demand can never compete with mass production even if a big part of the mass produced stuff is discarded.

This is definitely not universally true. E.g. photos are very cheaply printed on demand. Even on-demand books are printed at reasonable prices. Sure, mass production is cheaper (both for books and pictures), but the value difference of the individual product is high enough to bridge the price gap.

For cloth this area has found little exploration. TFA covers production at niche scale. If you would mass produce the looms to reduce the capital expense and heavily lean into customer value, e.g. individual fittings via 3d scans, as my sister comment proposes, or even just letting me customize my sweater with motive, color choice, garment etc., this could radically change the cost to value ratio. The company that has published TFA sells extremely bland apparel in a shop that looks just like any mass produced clothing shop and leaves all of the customer value of custom production on the table.

Last but not least: This "3d knitting" seems to need only a fraction of the labor of traditional sewed clothes. If textile production didn't default to underpaid labor under precarious working conditions in low income countries, it would probably already be cheaper.

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#35

Post by poszlem »

haritha-j wrote: post #12

They pitch this as the panacea to fast fashion, but surely the solution to fast fashion is just to not buy and throw away so many clothes? I don't believe we buy cheap clothes because we can't find good quality clothes that last, but because we like owning lots of clothes and keeping up with trends. When my last laptop broke I was kind of happy. I thought "ooh now I can upgrade to a shiny new laptop guilt-free". I th…

If "the solution" depends on people changing their behaviour on their own (ideally by lowering their expectations/do the harder thing/etc), it is almost never "the solution". It is usually just wishful thinking.

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#36

Post by IAmBroom »

paulluuk wrote: post #17
haritha-j wrote: post #12

They pitch this as the panacea to fast fashion, but surely the solution to fast fashion is just to not buy and throw away so many clothes? I don't believe we buy cheap clothes because we can't find good quality clothes that last, but because we like owning lots of clothes and keeping up with trends. When my last laptop broke I was kind of happy. I thought "ooh now I can upgrade to a shiny new laptop guilt-free". I th…

I bought a 200 dollar jacket and it had holes in it within months, just from regular use. I have an old 3 dollar shirt I bought years ago and it's only now beginning to show wear. One problem this shows, is that as a consumer I have no idea what the hell is quality clothing. Clearly, expensive does not always mean high quality. And I'm not buying "brand" clothing either.

I've been trying to buy winter coats at end of season (coincidentally; not chasing sales), and one thing is consistent: fabric content is only hinted at. "Full wool" but "slightly stretchy" - possible with a broadcloth woven wool, but more likely "full"!=100%. "Cashmere" at prices that can (at best) be 10% cashmere, but might be 2% just to avoid outright fraud.

I bought a really good-looking dark blue fedora; I received a really good-looking black fedora a size-and-a-1/2 too big. I had to fight them at the credit card level, because they offered me half off at best for a hat I can't wear.

What is inconsistent: only some of them are fraudulent fronts. I'd guess about 25-50% right now, based on my recent shopping experiences. But not all: I ordered some expensive gloves; their advertised fit was wrong; we settled on 50% off (I /can/ wear them, but it's not ideal, and their return policy clearly required me to ship back). That firm had shite measurement guides, but honest merchant fronting.

I've ordered super-cool button-front shirts that ended up being tissue-like fabric. Grrr...

Speaking of fabric... Amazon folded Fabric.com into their Borg cube, and you CANNOT buy fabric by weight online - for some goddamn reason. I want to buy 100% white cotton for a play costume, and need it thicker - between sheeting and terrycloth; closer to the latter; Nothing else really matters to me about it. But can I determine the cloth thickness/weight? Nope.

So: 50% swindlers; 75% idiots; buy clothes in person or else expect to throw a certain amount away.

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#37

Post by IAmBroom »

reverius42 wrote: post #28
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be great, a lot of clothes are made at sizes that don't sell very well and which get discounted, then discarded if they don't sell. However, made on demand will likely cost more, plus you can't fit items first. Unless they make items for fitting which you can then order to have manufactured. But yeah the main thing is that on-demand can never compete with mass production even if a big part of the mass prod…

From 3d printed clothing, the obvious next step should be to have your phone take a 3d scan of you, and send it to the clothing designer to print it to your actual body size and shape. We could have truly unique sizing (none of this S/M/L/XL stuff)!

Yes, and people have been chasing that Grail for decades. It's always right around the corner. (Despite what another poster said, it IS being pursued commercially. And unobtainable so far.)

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#38

Post by Krei-se »

My grandfather wrote a scifi utopia featuring printed-on-human garments similar to this ("Fahrt nach Futuras").

So you would wake up, wash then stand on some platform and have your daily outfit knitted on you. Not sure how he worked around the risk of strangling though lol.

Still funny. Thanks making it reality!

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#39

Post by IAmBroom »

_flux wrote: post #20
haritha-j wrote: post #12

They pitch this as the panacea to fast fashion, but surely the solution to fast fashion is just to not buy and throw away so many clothes? I don't believe we buy cheap clothes because we can't find good quality clothes that last, but because we like owning lots of clothes and keeping up with trends. When my last laptop broke I was kind of happy. I thought "ooh now I can upgrade to a shiny new laptop guilt-free". I th…

As I understand it, a big part of produced clothing just goes straight to waste to begin with. If everything was created on-demand, it would minimize that kind of waste.

"If" is doing a lot of hold-your-breath, make-a-wish work in that sentence.

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#40

Post by JKCalhoun »

paulluuk wrote: post #17
haritha-j wrote: post #12

They pitch this as the panacea to fast fashion, but surely the solution to fast fashion is just to not buy and throw away so many clothes? I don't believe we buy cheap clothes because we can't find good quality clothes that last, but because we like owning lots of clothes and keeping up with trends. When my last laptop broke I was kind of happy. I thought "ooh now I can upgrade to a shiny new laptop guilt-free". I th…

I bought a 200 dollar jacket and it had holes in it within months, just from regular use. I have an old 3 dollar shirt I bought years ago and it's only now beginning to show wear. One problem this shows, is that as a consumer I have no idea what the hell is quality clothing. Clearly, expensive does not always mean high quality. And I'm not buying "brand" clothing either.

They knew what "slow fashion" was 100 years ago when shirt collars and sleeve cuffs were turned to double the life of the garment.
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