Learn How T-Shirts Are Made

A question we get all the time is “How are t-shirts made?’  Since they don’t magically appear, I thought I would take you through the process in an easy to understand format.

1.  Sourcing Cotton– The first thing you must do is source the cotton.  This is a tricky process because weather conditions always affect the crop.

Image Courtesy of Gildan

Some years the crop is better than others.  Due to supply and demand this can really affect the cotton prices.  If the t-shirt manufacturer has to pay more for the cotton then they have to raise prices and your blank t-shirts will end up costing more.  The reverse is also true.

2.  Spinning–  This is the part of the manufacturing process that turns the cotton into yarn. Machines are able to make this process more manageable.

3.  Knitting–  During the knitting process, spun yarn is turned into cloth.  And yes the word cloth is in clothing! This is not just by chance.

4.  Cutting–  The cutting process is there to cut the sleeves and bodies out of the cloth.  Also the collars.  At this point, separate pieces of an actual garment begin to take shape.

5.  Sewing–  Like it sounds, sewing is when you sew these separate pieces together to form the shirt.

And that is it, at this point you have a t-shirt!  But you can still do more things to the shirt like decorate it via embroidery or screen printing.  For instance, if you wanted to print your company’s logo on the shirt it would be done at this point.  You could also tie dye it.

T-Shirt manufacturing has been around a long time and believe it or not the same steps are used today that were used way back when.  I hope this answers your question.