Knitwear Manufacturer in China —
Hangzhou-Tongxiang Mill Direct, from 100 Pieces.

Tongxiang sits 90 kilometers north-east of Hangzhou in the Zhejiang knit corridor. Deepwove's workshop sits inside the same corridor. The mill density is the reason: Tongxiang and the surrounding Jiaxing region produce a meaningful share of China's premium knit yarn — cashmere blended in Inner Mongolia and finished here, merino tops imported from Australia and re-spun on Italian-spec machines, cotton ring-spun for fine-gauge constructions across hundreds of mills inside a 60-kilometer radius. The yarn doesn't ship across China to reach Deepwove's knit floor. It moves between cities inside the same morning.

That proximity is what makes 100-piece knit MOQ economically possible. A factory two thousand kilometers from its yarn supplier has to commit to large yarn buys to absorb logistics overhead — which forces 500-piece minimums downstream. Deepwove's manufacturing group includes six knit factories inside the Hangzhou-Tongxiang radius. Yarn arrives in days, not weeks. Sample knit starts as soon as the yarn lands. Production cycles compress without compromising the construction.

The factories in Deepwove's manufacturing group have produced knitwear for brands including Reformation, Doen, Aritzia, and Self-Portrait. Deepwove is a new entity built on top of that twenty-year manufacturing relationship. The capability behind Deepwove isn't new. Deepwove is.

Knit gauge is the measurement of stitches per inch on the knitting machine. Lower numbers mean thicker, chunkier yarns and looser constructions. Higher numbers mean finer yarns and tighter constructions. Brand founders rarely think in gauge first — they think in weight, drape, and price point — but gauge is the upstream decision that determines all three. Deepwove's six knit factories cover the full gauge range premium womenswear brands actually use.

• 3–5gg coarse Cashmere chunky pullovers, oversized cardigans, statement cable knits The weight category that reads "winter knit" on a model in editorial. Yarn is heavier, gauge is looser, single garment uses more raw fiber. Cashmere in this range is Deepwove's most-developed knit category — 46 styles in the production archive, including the 39 cashmere-blend pieces actively in season pools.
• 5–7gg medium Wool cardigans, cable cotton knits, lightweight pullovers The most versatile range. Cable knits (six styles currently in development archive), ribbed turtlenecks, and mid-weight wool cardigans live here. Yarn weight balances structure against drape. Most Deepwove knit dresses sit in this range — four knit dresses in the archive, all 5-7gg.
• 7–10gg fine Fitted merino tops, fine pullovers, polo collars, jersey knit dresses The premium fitted knit range. Merino is Deepwove's strength here — fine-gauge merino production runs on the same machines the European luxury houses specified twenty years ago. Polo styles (fifteen in the archive) and slim-fit pullovers (thirty-eight) sit here.
• 10–12gg ultra-fine Lightweight cotton knit dresses, layering tops, fine-gauge silk-blend constructions The trans-seasonal knit range. Cotton ring-spun yarn at this gauge produces the cotton knit dresses currently driving demand from premium DTC brands. Silk-blend ultra-fine knits open here for capsule collections.

Stitch type sits one layer below gauge. Deepwove's knit factories produce jersey (stocking stitch) as the universal baseline, rib (35 styles in archive — used for collars, cuffs, full ribbed bodies), cable and aran (six styles, the highest-craft knit construction Deepwove offers), jacquard and intarsia (small program — argyle, stripe, color-block), and Breton stripe (two styles in archive, classic French knit construction). Construction complexity determines sample iteration count more than gauge does — a flat jersey pullover usually reaches approved sample in one to two iterations; a multi-stitch cable knit usually needs three.

Knit garment development is structurally different from woven development. A woven pattern starts with flat fabric cut to shape, then sewn. A knit pattern starts with yarn fed into a knitting machine that builds the garment whole — or in panels that are then linked, not sewn — by setting stitch counts row by row. The brand's design intent has to translate into a stitch-by-stitch program before a single garment exists. Most generalist factories outsource this step. Deepwove handles it in-house.

Four pattern makers work full-time inside Deepwove's Hangzhou workshop, alongside four designers and two fabric sourcing specialists — a ten-person product development team. Two of the four pattern makers specialize in knit pattern development. Knit pattern work demands different grading logic than woven (yarn shrinkage and stretch behave differently than woven fabric), and different fitting protocol (a knit sample is fitted at relaxed tension, not at the wear-state, because the body stretches the yarn). Deepwove's two knit-specialist pattern makers have collectively over fifteen years inside the Hangzhou knit cluster.

For an ODM knit brief — a moodboard, reference knit, or design IP — the pipeline runs through six tracked stages.

1. Brief intake (48 hours) A moodboard, reference knit garment, or technical sketch arrives. Deepwove returns a proposal within 48 hours — covering yarn direction, gauge recommendation, stitch construction, sample timeline, and indicative cost band. 100% of the time.
2. Yarn sourcing (1–2 weeks) The two-person fabric sourcing team sends yarn briefs to Tongxiang mill partners. Yarn swatches in the relevant gauge return for brand sign-off before a single sample is knitted. For repeat yarns Deepwove has on hand, this step compresses to days.
3. Pattern and program development The knit-specialist pattern makers convert the brief into a stitch program. Cable, intarsia, rib pattern, and shaping are all coded before the machine starts. Pattern grading accounts for yarn shrinkage and post-wash relaxation.
4. First sample (within 1 week of yarn arrival) The knitting machine produces the first sample at the specified gauge. The sample is hand-linked or seamed depending on construction, then steam-finished. First sample lands within one week of yarn arrival, subject to fabric availability.
5. Iteration (2–3 rounds typical) Most knit styles reach approved sample in 2-3 iterations. Single-round approvals happen when the brief includes a reference knit garment and the yarn is on hand. Multi-stitch cable or intarsia constructions typically need the third iteration.
6. Production (60 days, from 100 pieces) The approved sample routes to whichever of Deepwove's six knit factories matches the construction discipline. First-order knit production runs 60 days from approved sample to shipped goods. Minimum order quantity is 100 pieces per style. Reorders against locked patterns and yarn on hand compress to 4-5 weeks.

Brand-side mistakes Deepwove sees most often: sending a knit reference garment with no fiber composition label (the yarn behavior can't be guessed from a hand feel alone), specifying gauge without specifying weight (the same gauge in cashmere versus cotton produces vastly different garment weights), or requesting a knit sample without committing yarn budget (yarn is the upstream commit; sample fee alone won't cover it). The 48-hour proposal step exists to surface those gaps before sampling starts.

Premium knit timeline is longer than premium woven by a meaningful margin. Knit garments are knitted whole or panel-by-panel, then linked, finished, and steam-blocked by hand. Woven garments are cut from flat fabric and sewn — a faster pipeline at scale. Brand founders planning a knit launch should price two extra weeks into the development cycle versus a woven launch of the same complexity.

Full knit production lead time lands at around 4 months from brief to ship-out from Hangzhou for first-order custom knit development. Phase one — yarn sourcing, pattern development, sampling, iteration — runs 4 to 8 weeks depending on construction complexity and whether yarn requires mill discovery or sits in Deepwove's on-hand stock. Phase two — first-order production of 100-500 pieces — runs 60 days. Reorders compress dramatically: pattern is locked, yarn is on hand, only the 60-day production stage remains, often shortened to 4-5 weeks when the knit factory has open machine time.

Shipping to your warehouse runs separately on top of the 4-month manufacturing cycle: air freight to North America 7-10 days, sea freight to USWC or Australia 4 weeks, sea freight to USEC 4 weeks. Brands planning fall-winter knit drops should commit briefs by April for September goods at the latest, and by May for September goods when reorder yarn is on hand.