I. Raw Material Stage: Cotton Yarn → Knitted Grey Fabric (Special Hoodie Fabric)
1. Raw Material Spinning
Hoodies mainly adopt combed cotton, pure cotton, and cotton-polyester blended yarns. Fine count cotton yarns are produced through cotton cleaning, carding, drawing and twisting processes. Fabrics are divided into three main types: plain hoodie fabric, small loop terry fabric, and thick brushed fleece fabric, suitable for thin-style, regular and thick fleece hoodies for autumn and winter wear.
2. Circular Knitting Machine Weaving
Hoodie fabrics are fully knitted by circular knitting machines instead of woven looms, producing elastic, soft and breathable knitted grey fabrics. The fabric surface is smooth and delicate, while the reverse side forms looped terry structures. Fleece-style fabrics reserve a special base structure for brushing. The newly woven grey fabric is stiff, inelastic and unshaped.
3. Fabric Pre-shrinking, Setting and Dyeing
The grey fabric is first treated with high-temperature pre-shrinking to release potential shrinkage in advance and prevent finished garments from shrinking and deforming after washing. High-temperature dyeing and color fixation are then carried out to remove surface loose color, ensure color fastness and avoid fading in subsequent use. After dyeing, the fabric undergoes soft washing, drying and high-temperature tenter setting to achieve a soft hand feel, stable size and smooth surface.
4. Brushing & Sanding (Fleece Hoodies Only)
A special process for autumn and winter fleece hoodies: The set grey fabric is sent to a brushing machine. Steel wire rollers gently raise the base fibers to form dense and thick fleece, including fine fleece, silver fox fleece, lamb fleece and other textures. After brushing, residual loose fibers are cleaned and secondary shaping is performed to ensure even and non-shedding fleece surfaces.
II. Cutting Workshop: Finished Fabric → Garment Cut Pieces
1. Computer Marker Making & Multi-layer Spreading
According to hoodie sizes (XS–XXL) and styles (crew neck, hooded, pullover, zip-up), intelligent computer marker making is adopted to maximize fabric utilization and reduce waste. Fabrics are spread flat in multiple layers manually or mechanically with precise alignment to ensure flat, unstretched and dislocation-free fabric layers.
2. Precision Cutting & Piece Sorting
CNC cutters cut along pattern lines to separate all core hoodie components: front panel, back panel, sleeves, hood pieces, hood brim, rib cuffs, rib hem, neck binding, pocket pieces and more. All cut pieces are numbered, bundled and sorted by order and size to avoid size and style mixing.
3. Auxiliary Material Preparation
All supporting accessories are prepared simultaneously: rib neckbands, rib cuffs, rib hems, drawcords, cord locks, zippers (for zip-up styles), woven labels, care labels, hang tags, printing paste, embroidery accessories, reinforcing interfacing and other materials.
III. Decoration Processing: Pre-sewing Treatment for Cut Pieces (Printing / Embroidery)
All patterns and logo decorations of hoodies are completed before sewing to prevent garment deformation during post-processing.
1. Printing Process
Multiple printing techniques are applied, including water-based printing, plastisol printing, heat transfer printing, reflective printing and foam printing. Precise positioning is completed manually or mechanically, followed by high-temperature drying and color fixation to ensure durable, crack-proof and peel-proof patterns.
2. Embroidery Process
Computerized embroidery machines stitch preset patterns on designated positions of cut pieces. Excess threads and floating stitches are trimmed after embroidery to ensure flat and delicate pattern presentation.
IV. Sewing Workshop: Cut Pieces → Semi-finished Garments
Assembly line standardized sewing is adopted with fixed procedures to ensure consistent silhouette, neat stitching and durable finished garments.
1. Body Panel Assembly
Shoulder seams and side seams of front and back panels are stitched with knitted fabric exclusive elastic stitching, adapting to fabric stretchability to avoid thread breaking and seam cracking during movement.
2. Sleeve Sewing
Sleeve bodies are precisely aligned and attached to the garment body with smooth seaming, ensuring symmetrical sleeves, natural silhouette and no wrinkles or skew.
3. Neckline Craftsmanship (Core of Crew Neck Hoodies)
Rib neckbands and binding strips are sewn with double stitching reinforcement and shaping, preventing neckline deformation and sagging, ensuring a snug fit and long-term shape retention.
4. Hood Sewing (Exclusive for Hooded Styles)
Hood pieces are spliced and sewn into complete hood shapes with fixed brim strips. Drawcords are threaded and cord locks are fixed to ensure symmetrical hood shape and smooth drawcord movement without deviation.
5. Pocket Sewing
Kangaroo pockets and side pockets are sewn with reinforced stitching at pocket openings to prevent deformation and cracking caused by pulling force.
6. Cuff & Hem Finishing
Rib cuffs and rib hems are sewn with even and moderate tension stitching, ensuring snug fit, no rolling edges and no tight discomfort.
7. Semi-finished Garment Inspection & Thread Trimming
Overall stitching inspection is conducted with excess threads trimmed and skipped or missing stitches repaired, producing complete semi-finished hoodies.
V. Post-washing & Shaping (Quality & Hand Feeling Enhancement)
Remove residual sizing agents, loose color, thread scraps and dust generated during production to optimize garment hand feeling and silhouette.
1. Gentle Soft Washing
Low-temperature gentle washing with softener is applied to soften fabrics, remove stains and loose fibers, and eliminate the stiffness of new garments.
2. Color Fixation & Anti-pilling Treatment
Targeted color fixation and anti-pilling finishing are performed to solve the common problems of fading and pilling of knitted hoodie fabrics, improving garment durability.
3. Drying & Steam Shaping
After low-temperature drying, overall steam pressing is carried out to smooth wrinkles on the body, neckline and cuffs, fix the overall silhouette and present a flat and neat finished look.
VI. Quality Inspection & Packaging: Semi-finished Products → Finished Delivery
1. Full Quality Inspection
Comprehensive inspection covers size deviation, stitching defects, printing/embroidery peeling, fabric damage, color difference, pilling, fading and asymmetric elasticity. Defective products are reworked or scrapped uniformly.
2. Label Installation
Care labels, size labels and main brand labels are sewn on, and brand hang tags are attached with verification of style, size and color information.
3. Folding & Packaging
Garments are neatly folded and covered with dust-proof and moisture-proof bags to avoid dust contamination and deformation during transportation.
4. Cartoning, Warehousing & Delivery
Products are packed by size ratio with outer box labels attached, then stored in warehouses and finally delivered to brand stores and e-commerce warehouses.
Core Production Chain of Hoodies (Simplified)
Cotton Yarn Spinning → Circular Knitting Weaving → Pre-shrinking, Dyeing & Brushing → Computerized Cutting → Printing & Embroidery → Assembly Line Sewing → Soft Washing & Shaping → Full Quality Inspection → Labeling & Packaging → Carton & Delivery