Thursday, May 03, 2007

Machine knitting pattern definitions - main bed techniques

Here I'm defining different machine knitting patterns/techniques. This will be a work in progress!

Slip stitch

The stitch is skipped and not knitted, leaving a bar of yarn behind it on the purl side.

Mosaic/Maze knitting

Two-colour slip stitch which forms a maze or mosaic pattern on the right side.

Tuck stitch

On the machine, the stitch has a loop of yarn placed in the hook, but the original stitch is not knitted off. To replicate this by hand you'd bring the yarn forward, slip a st, then knit a stitch, creating an extra stitch

Fair-isle or knit-in

Two-colour work, where the colour not is use is slipped behind the knitted stitches, resulting in "floats" of yarn on the wrong side of the work.

Simple lace

Lace of holes made by transferring single stitches in one direction or another

Fashion lace

Lace where stitches are transferred over several passes - almost a cable effect, but with lace holes

Punch lace

Punch lace Lace made by running an invisible thread along with the main yarn. In certain areas, only the invisible yarn is knitted.

Tuck lace

Lace created with a tuck card, where certain needles are out of work, and the tucks fall either side.

Knitweave

A contrasting yarn is woven into the wrong side of the knitting - can be done to a pattern

Garter stitch

Knitting made with a garter carriage, that may have both knit and purl in one row

If you've got any more definitions to add, please comment and I'll update. I'm only really a beginner at this so don't claim to have them all down!

3 comments:

Linda said...

Thank you. I am new to machine knitting and information like this is very helpful.

Unknown said...

Thank you. I am a newbie It took at least week and a lot of wikipedia references to find out what is what. This is espesially very useful for non English speakers. Is there a list for all abbreviations on the Brother machines and carriage ? Like
N: I presume=: Normal, H : ? KC !, KC 11 . When I understand the translation, the use Is easier to understand and when use what....

steel breeze said...

Hi! There's not really standard definitions for machine knitting because it didn't have such a long history as hand knitting, but you could check out these: http://www.needlesofsteel.org.uk/mcinfo.html - in fact this whole website (mine!) for all things machine knitting! Hope that helps! :)