Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

oliver-charles.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 90 posts

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#61

Post by mikepurvis »

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 started buying "nicer" things purely for fit reasons, like I've realized that I'm a lean 6' guy with a long torso, so for shirts and especially sweaters a medium is too short and a large is too baggy— the correct size for me in off-the-rack items is a tall medium, and that's definitely not available everywhere.

So I'm extremely happy with a Land's End quarter zip that I picked up recently, and I hope that's a well-made piece that will last a while, but overall I completely agree that mass-produced clothing is a market for lemons; no one can tell what the good stuff is, so it's all assumed to be garbage and priced accordingly.

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#62

Post by mikepurvis »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #51
cannonpr wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A “quality” jacket in the 1930s would cost 300-400$ or more inflation adjusted, it would also look less fashionable today, and feel somewhat less comfortable due to several concessions for durability in design. A durable quality jacket back then was also holding a majority market position, rather than being a niche good, which means that “quality clothes” do still seem to exist, but I’m always looking at 500-600$ for…

>but I’m always looking at 500-600$ for durable jeans tf. That’s clearly you looking for a specific fashion or intending to pay as much as you can. Triple Aught Design jeans are $150 to $250 and I am skeptical you have anything that is outlasting them. Others brands surely as well. Seems to me you are still stuck in the “if it costs more…” line of thinking.

I recently ordered some Levis that I'm happy with, but I think there's also a limit for me in that certain life-things can happen that will end a garment regardless of how much was paid for it or how much it was babied.

I'm pretty disciplined about wearing a bib in the kitchen these days, but you can still get a glass of wine on it at the dinner table, or sparks from a campfire, or a cycling wipeout. Those are annoying at the best of times, but particularly if it ends a garment that you paid 3-5x normal price for specifically so you could have it forever.

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#63

Post by serf »

mhb wrote: post #42

They seem to have left out the most interesting part - what does that machine cost?

yeah. I was waiting for at least some kind of portal into the actual engineering and craft of the thing due to the name of the article, and was left with an advertisement flavored sour aftertaste.

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#64

Post by serf »

bregma wrote: post #22
willis936 wrote: post #16

Right now I'm doing the opposite: 3D printing a loom for hand-knit garments. https://www.printables.com/model/1483991-fall-is-looming-the...

Looms weave. You need a knitting machine to knit.

that's true, but there are also like 200 sock knitting machine designs for FDM printing out there , maybe they're just slowly walking through all of the printable textile methods .

loom is probably more satisfying to get working right, but the knitting machines are a joy to just stare at while they're working. Hypnotic.

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#65

Post by vessenes »

zokier wrote: post #10

So this is an ad for company that purchased an off-the-shelf industrial knitting machine and is trying to sell it as some new novel innovation with cringe "3d knitting" branding. If you go to the the manufacturer site you can find same talking points and plenty of logos: https://www.shimaseiki.com/wholegarment/

Absolutely no relation to these guys, but I have a hobby knitwear line and a longstanding fascination with Shima Seki.

The SS machines are unique, as far as I know. They are also SUPER hard to work with -- the software is opaque. The design skills matter. Those design skills have to hook up to the SS machine design system.

Hooking yarn is not the same thing as say bending steel - in terms of reliability, ease, variations. Lots of complexity here.

There have been some attempts at doing 3d knitting direct to retail, I recall an MIT startup that had a boutique on Newbury street, and eventually went D2C only, as well as some European brands.

The SS machines are a little bit of a product in search of a market as far as I can see -- they are amazing, they waste very little product, in theory unique, custom garments can be put out rapidly. In practice, they seem to be used as small-run / custom-run tools -- but the only way to provide that is to have skilled designers and engineers -- hence the middle layer.

Yes, I want one.

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#66

Post by bregma »

serf wrote: post #64
bregma wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looms weave. You need a knitting machine to knit.

that's true, but there are also like 200 sock knitting machine designs for FDM printing out there , maybe they're just slowly walking through all of the printable textile methods . loom is probably more satisfying to get working right, but the knitting machines are a joy to just stare at while they're working. Hypnotic.

Warping a loom by hand is a nightmare of repetitive tweaking, drawing each warp end through a heddle and adjusting the tension, one by one and back again. It's like restringing and tuning a guitar with hundreds of strings.

Even hand knitting is slightly better -- cast 250 stitches on to a circular needle then start the next row, only to find 10 rows later you've twisted it and are now knitting a Moebius sweater. Rip it out and repeat (sometimes referred to as "frogging" or "tinking").

Yeah, knitting machines are satisfying in many ways.

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#67

Post by esseph »

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 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.

I will buy 5 things that last for 10 years if somebody gave me the option. Otherwise no, I'm not chasing fashion trends.

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#68

Post by jaustin »

Can anyone else comment on the durability claims here - I wear a lot of knitwear but in my experience it is almost never the case that they fail at the seams. Is the cut/sew mechanism of fabrication part of the weakening? (my jumpers tent to either wear through in elbows (patchable!) or ultimately get nicked/cut by something like a branch I failed to avoid).

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#69

Post by kdazzle »

I'm kind of in this space - 3d knitting is pretty interesting, but knitting a sweater like that takes a long time (I forget how long, but I think it's 1-2 hours), so it's not really a solution for working at any sort of scale. Unless you build up inventory or have a ton of machines. But the machines are super expensive compared to regular knitting machines.

I also think that wholegarment knits look kind of cheap and that sewing actually adds structural integrity and durability to a garment.

But anything knitting or clothes related is really fun and challenging and good for them for making a business out of it.

Re: 3D-Knitting: The Ultimate Guide

#70

Post by ninalanyon »

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.

Buy second hand clothes. These are either very, very, cheap, and they last just long enough for me to get bored with them. Or they are merely fairly cheap and last almost forever because the stuff that quickly falls apart doesn't get resold, it gets discarded by the person who bought it new.

In either case I have lengthened the time between manufacturing and landfill and had the enjoyment of clothes that I would otherwise not have been able to afford along the way.

Post reply on HN