Apparel Manufacturing FAQ

A cut and sew manufacturer builds garments from flat fabric rather than decorating pre-made blanks. The factory cuts your pattern pieces from fabric, sews the garment together, finishes it, and inspects it before it ships. HHGC is a cut and sew factory in Buchtel, Ohio, producing knit and woven apparel for American brands.

Yes. Small-batch production is our specialty, and many of our clients are regional brands, teams, and festivals producing their first serious runs. Bring a sample or tech pack if you have one. If you have neither, we will tell you exactly what is needed before production can begin.

A tech pack, a pattern, or a physical reference sample will each start the conversation. Any one of the three is enough for an initial assessment. A well-made reference garment tells us a great deal about construction, fit, and fabric. Our project review step exists specifically to find what is missing.

Complete the quote request form with your product category, knit or woven, style count, estimated units per style, target delivery date, and development stage. You can also email betsy@ohiohhgc.com or call 718-666-6744. We respond to every serious inquiry, including when the answer is that we are not the right fit.

We do not publish a single fixed minimum, because the practical minimum depends on garment complexity and your fabric situation. A simple T-shirt and a fully featured pair of overalls involve very different setup work. We specialize in small to mid-sized runs and will give you a straight answer on fit once we see your style count and unit estimates.

Lead times depend on fabric availability, garment complexity, and the current production calendar. Sampling happens before production is scheduled. Share your target delivery date in the quote form and we will tell you honestly whether it is achievable before you commit anything.

Per-unit cost is typically higher than offshore volume pricing. The total cost comparison often favors domestic production for a growing brand, though, once you account for minimum-quantity overbuying, freight, tariffs, quality failures, six-month revision cycles, and inventory that never sells. We would rather help you run the real numbers than oversell the label.

That is the plan on both sides. HHGC is expanding its workforce through an in-house sewing school and a Hocking College apprenticeship partnership, supported by a JobsOhio Small Business Grant. Brands that start small with us grow with a factory that is growing too.

Both. We produce knit apparel including T-shirts, jerseys, and cut-and-sew knitwear, and woven apparel including button-front shirts, overalls, workwear, and canvas goods.

T-shirts and knit tops, jerseys and team uniforms, woven shirts, overalls and workwear, totes and sewn accessories, event and festival merchandise, and wool shirting and heirloom pieces. If your product falls outside that range, such as heavy outerwear, bras, or footwear, ask first and we will tell you honestly.

Either arrangement works. Many clients supply their own fabric and trims, which is a cut-make-trim (CMT) arrangement. We also maintain regional American sourcing relationships, including a dirt-to-shirt program using cotton grown in Virginia and spun and knitted in North Carolina.

One-piece flow is a lean manufacturing method where a single garment travels through the line and receives attention at every operation, rather than moving in large bundles of identical pieces. Defects get caught at the seam where they occur instead of surfacing later in bulk. We run one-piece flow on every order, and it is the main reason our quality holds up.

Yes. Garment dyeing is offered as part of our production services. We currently work with established partner dye houses to deliver consistent results at scale, while we build our own dye facility in Southeast Ohio.

We coordinate screen printing through trusted Ohio partners. The Southern Ohio Copperheads jerseys, for example, were printed in Carroll, Ohio and sewn at our factory in Buchtel.

Yes, and we have. Working with Circular Thrift, we remanufactured used jeans and jackets into 50 one-of-a-kind denim totes. Reclaimed projects are scoped individually because material supply and disassembly affect everything downstream.

17645 Bank Street, Buchtel, Ohio 45716, inside a repurposed 1890s Catholic church in a former coal mining village in Appalachian Southeast Ohio, about fifteen minutes from Athens. The location sits within a day's drive of most major U.S. markets, which keeps freight simple.

Yes. Tours are welcome by arrangement, and brands are encouraged to come watch their garments being produced. Email betsy@ohiohhgc.com or call 718-666-6744 to schedule one.

Yes. Tech packs, designs, and product details you share are treated as your confidential business information. The case studies published on this site appear with the clients' knowledge. See our privacy policy.

Yes. Finishing is part of production, not an afterthought. We handle custom labels, care labels, hang tags, folding, poly-bagging, and carton packing to your specification, then ship from Buchtel or hand off for local pickup. See capabilities for details.