Category Archives: every garment tells a story

Every Garment Tells a Story – Handwarmers

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Our handwarmers have a nice little story that begins with a knitting factory in upstate New York.  The facility we use for our American-made knit goods is a fourth generation company that is one of the few facilities of its kind left in the country. They have a lot of old machinery and still do things the way they did 50 years ago.

They knit all of the cloth and then send it here to us in Oshkosh.  We then send it to a large laundering facility nearby to get all of the shrinkage out of the cloth.  The hand warmers actually come in one large knit piece, like a blanket,  and then our staff pulls out the threads that divide each row.

After the rows are divided they go to our sewing facility where they cut them into the width of the handwarmers and do all of the sewing. When the process is complete, we clean them up by looking for loose threads and then they are ready to package and ship.

Sweater Driving

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Recently, we partnered with the Oakwood Elementary School community on a Holiday sweater drive.  Green 3 is purchasing all of the sweaters Oakwood collected, with 100% of the proceeds going directly back to the Oakwood PTO.  As you most likely know, Green 3 will take those sweaters and turn them into scarves, hand warmers and even skirts.  What you may not know is that Oakwood is the environmental education charter school in our city, making their school a perfect fit for this type of initiative.

After the sweater drive wraps up we are inviting the Oakwood families to our company store for a special event.  We want to show them how are sweaters are made and what our company is about.  We love our community and are always looking for ways to connect our mission with others.  If you or someone you know would be interested in a similar event please contact Carla@green3apparel.com.

Sock Monkey Mania!

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If you are familiar with Signals website or catalog, you know that their company provides a wide variety of giftable items.  From kid’s stuff and jewelry to wall decor and apparel, the ideas are seemingly endless.  Fortunately for us, Signals has been a faithful customer of ours since 2008.

Signals offers “Gifts that Inform, Enlighten, and Entertain”. We present a vast selection of creative items that reflect the themes of Public Television – History, Nature, Education, Science, Art & Music. These are quality items that invoke thought and discussion. Our selection inspires continued learning.

 

Continued learning is right.. we’ve just learned that our Sock Monkey Knitted Bag is making a big impact on Signals customers.  Signals has just placed their third order on this item and we are in the process of getting them more bags as quickly as possible.  To say we are thrilled at the response is an understatement.

The Double-Up Story

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The story begins before our retail store opened, at a time when we didn’t have an outlet for items that were irregular, damaged or defective.  They just sat in boxes.  Like all clothing manufactures, there is a percentage of inventory that has some sort of imperfection, which would then normally become waste product.  Sandy and Jim began talking about how to reduce this product waste.  It’s because of this, that our double-up tees were born.

At this point, there was an emerging trend within the mens wear market, of wearing a short sleeve polo shirt over a long sleeve t-shirt.  With Jim’s background in the children’s apparel market he had seen this type of shirt and it was very common.  An inset sleeve sewn in, to have the appearance of a layered look.  Sandy and Jim decided to try it out as a new line item.  We then cut the sleeves off of the damaged and defective tees and sewed them into our short sleeve t-shirts.   We did it and the response was unbelievably strong.  There was really nobody doing it in our market place and what began as a way to utilize waste, turned into a signature item for us.

We continue to use our damaged and defective product when possible.  We use the sleeves or we will cut up the t-shirts and sew them into new sleeves.  However, because demand is so great we actually now have to manufacture the sleeve detail from scratch, along with using our irregular waste product.  As we prepare for our spring 2013 line, we will be featuring a new item that will again achieve the layered look without the layers.  This time it will be a plunging v-neck with an inset contrast color and we can’t wait to show you!  Every garment tells a story and that is the story of our double-up tees.

 

 

Recycled Cotton at Green 3

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Today we are sharing a video of Jim Martin explaining our use of recycled cotton.  We use this type of cotton in our knit line and wanted to give you an idea of what that exactly means.  Our knit items have a wonderful and luxurious feel to them and our large throws are perfect for those brisk fall nights that are right around the corner.  We hope you enjoy the video!

 

Customized Letterman Sweater

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If you’ve received an Uncommon Goods catalog in the past few weeks, you may remember seeing this Customized Letterman Sweater. This item is only available through Uncommon Goods but there are a few other businesses involved (including us).  Like our tagline says “Every Garment Tells a Story”.

This story begins with our original partnership with Ripon Athletic.  A few years ago, through a network of friends, it came to our attention that Ripon Athletic was a bit slower during the fall season (when football season was underway and baseball uniform production was yet to begin). We asked if they’d be interested in helping us sew our sock monkey mittens during that time. They accepted and it really helped both of our companies to have that arrangement.  A year later, Uncommon Goods came to us, asking for a spring skirt that had an athletic feel, we knew just the people to help us fulfill that request.

As our relationship with Ripon Athletic continued we were thrilled to find out that they were the owners of the authentic Sand Knit label.   It could be found on athletic uniforms, apparel, and letterman jackets.  Items with that label were considered to be vintage by many, as it hadn’t been in production for years. Uncommon Goods and Ripon Athletic are now producing a Customized Letterman Sweater with the authentic Sand Knit label.   We are proud to be in business with both of these amazing companies and happy to have been a key stepping stone for their partnership.

But let’s be honest, the best part of this sweater is that your main squeeze can wear it to all of your games!