Knitted shoe uppers

Abstract

Four current knitting technologies for manufacturing knitted shoe uppers are described: on automatic hosiery knitting machines, large diameter double bed circular knitting machines, double bed flat knitting machines and warp knitting machines. Advantages for the application of particular technologies are given. When cutting one-piece uppers from piece goods, the material loss can be up to 30 % and the edges are not strong. For the manufacture of knitted uppers PES multifilament yarns with a count of 167 dtex are mostly used. Double bed circular knitting machines with a gauge of E14 are used for manufacturing knitted shoe uppers. To make one shoe upper several knitted structures are used, such as multiple plated double jersey structure and multicolor jacquard. Mass per unit area of uppers for classic sneakers ranges from 500 to 800 g/m2, and for fine women‘s shoes from 400 to 600 g/m2. New or previously used single-color footwear can be sampled by the printing technique.