Knit Sweater Guide: What Makes One Worth Buying

A knit sweater is one of the few pieces where quality shows within a month. A cheap knit pills at the cuff, stretches at the neck and loses its shape in the wash. A well-made one gets softer and keeps its lines. This knit sweater guide covers the four things that separate them: yarn, gauge, construction and how the graphic is made. Sulta✦Studios builds knitwear with all four in mind, and the details below are what we check.

Yarn: what it is made of

Most streetwear knits are cotton, acrylic, wool or a blend. Cotton is breathable and holds color, but a pure cotton knit is heavy and can stretch. Acrylic is light and cheap, and it pills fast. Wool is warm and springs back, but many people find it itchy against the skin.

A cotton-acrylic blend around 60 to 70 percent cotton gives the best balance for a graphic knit. The cotton carries the color and hand feel. The acrylic adds recovery so the sweater returns to shape after a wash. Look for the fiber content on the product page. If it is not listed, ask.

Gauge: how tight the knit is

Gauge is the number of stitches per inch. A 3 gauge knit is chunky and open. A 7 gauge is mid weight. A 12 gauge is fine and close to a t-shirt in drape.

For a graphic sweater, 7 gauge is the sweet spot. It is tight enough to render a detailed pattern and loose enough to feel like a sweater instead of a shirt. A chunkier 3 or 5 gauge works for plain colors but blurs a graphic.

Jacquard vs printed knits

This is the biggest difference in a graphic knit. A printed knit has the design applied to the surface after knitting. It sits on top of the fibers, cracks over time and fades with washing.

A jacquard knit has the design knitted in. Different colored yarns are worked into the fabric row by row, so the graphic is the sweater. It cannot crack or peel. Turn the sweater inside out. If you see floats of colored yarn behind the design, it is jacquard. Our Van Gogh Knit is built this way, with the full painting knitted into the front panel in a 7 gauge.

Construction details that last

Ribbed cuffs, hem and collar should be knitted in a tighter stitch than the body, usually a 2 by 2 rib, so they grip and recover. A collar that is just the body fabric folded over will stretch out.

Fully fashioned sweaters are knitted to shape and linked at the seams. Cut and sewn sweaters are made from flat knit fabric and sewn like a tee. Fully fashioned costs more and lasts longer because there is no cut edge to fray.

Check the weight. A mid-weight sweater sits around 500 to 700 grams for a size M. Lighter than that and it will not hold a boxy shape.

Fit for a streetwear knit

A boxy cut with a dropped shoulder, ending at the hip. The body should have 6 to 8 inches of ease so it hangs rather than clings. Sleeves slightly long, since knit cuffs push up easily. Take your normal size. Knits relax at the shoulder with wear, so do not size up unless you plan to layer a hoodie underneath. The knitwear collection lists flat measurements for every size.

Signs of a knit that will not last

Pilling after the first wear. A collar that is already loose on the hanger. Visible seams at the shoulder that pucker when you pull the sleeve. A graphic that feels stiff or plasticky to the touch, which means it is printed on rather than knitted in. A weight under 400 grams in a size M, which means the yarn is thin and the sweater will lose its shape.

None of these are hard to check on a product page or in hand. A brand that lists fiber content, gauge and weight is a brand that has thought about the knit. One that lists only a color and a size usually has not.

Care that keeps it in shape

Hand wash or machine wash cold on a wool cycle, inside out, in a mesh bag. Never wring. Press the water out in a towel and dry flat. Hanging a wet knit stretches it permanently. Store folded. Remove pills with a fabric comb, not scissors.

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