Textiles: knitting – Independent-needle machines – Straight
Reexamination Certificate
1998-12-02
2001-01-23
Calvert, John J. (Department: 3741)
Textiles: knitting
Independent-needle machines
Straight
C066S071000, C066S076000, C066S198000, C066S200000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06176105
ABSTRACT:
SPECIFICATION
A Widening Method for a Rib Knitted Fabric and a Widened Rib Knitted Fabric Thereby
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a widening method for a rib knitted fabric knitted with needles of a front needle bed and a back needle bed of a flat knitting machine and a widened rib knitted fabric thereby.
2. Prior Art
In knitting a knitted fabric with a flat knitting machine, fashioning or the like has been practiced by increasing the number of wales of the knitted fabric, and widening for forming a new stitch has been used for this purpose.
Widening can be done by a method wherein a new stitch is formed on an empty needle located outside a side edge of a knitted fabric to gradually expand the knitting range (hereinafter referred to as external widening), and by a method wherein a group of stitches of a desired number of wales including the most outside wale of a side edge of a knitted fabric is moved outward, and a stitch is formed on an empty needle generated by that outward movement in the knitting range to expand the knitting range (hereinafter referred to as internal widening).
In external widening, as a new wale or wales are formed on a side part of a knitted fabric by widening, the side part of the knitted fabric will become irregular. In contrast to this, in internal widening, as a new wale or wales are formed inside a knitted fabric, well-balanced wales will appear in both side parts of the knitted fabric; thus the finished knitted fabric will have neat and regular side ends. Hence internal widening is superior to external widening in terms of neat finish of post processing such as sewing of side ends of a knitted fabric or fabrics after completion of knitting, and work efficiency, and internal widening is normally used.
The conventional internal widening will be described by way of an example of a rib knitted fabric illustrated in FIG.
7
. The courses of step
1
and step
2
are repeated an appropriate number of times to complete knitting just short of a widening area. Next, stitches are moved sequentially by transferring stitches and racking a needle bed, as shown in step
3
, to make empty, a needle F of the front needle bed and a needle f of the back needle bed on which new stitches will be formed. An empty needle means a needle holding no yarn.
Next, in step
4
, yarn is fed alternately and sequentially to needles A~P of the front needle bed and needles a~p of the back needle bed in a travelling direction of the yarn feeder. As a result, knit stitches are formed on needles except the needles F, f that have been made empty. As the needles F, f do not hold stitches of the previous course, no stitches are formed but the yarn is hooked on these needles F, f.
Next, to form a new wale on the needle L of the front needle bed and the needle l of the back needle bed, stitches held on needles L~P of the front needle bed and stitches being held on needles l~p of the back needle bed are moved sequentially by transfer and racking. As a result, the needle L of the front needle bed and the needle l of the back needle bed are made empty, holding no stitch, as shown in step
5
. In step
6
, the yarn is alternately fed to needles A~Q of the front needle bed and needles a~q of the back needle bed being the full width of the knitting range. In this widening, to make internal widening, the yarn is fed sequentially, in the travelling direction of the yarn feeder, to the needles F, f, L, l that have been made empty, to hook the yarn on these empty needles. However, as the needles F, f, L, l do not hold any stitch of the preceding course, when the yarn being hooked on these needles are formed into stitches by knitting of the succeeding course, the stitches on the needles F, f, L, l will be pulled up, leaving a conspicuous holes in the widened area.
To solve this problem, the present applicant has proposed a new widening method in Japanese Provisional Patent Hei 7-54245, corresponding to U. S. Pat. No. 5,505,062. According to this method, stitches are shifted either leftward or rightward to make empty a pair of needles, one on the front needle bed and the other on the back needle bed, in a widening area. Next, stitches of the next course are formed from one end of the knitting range to just short of the empty needles of the widening area, and the travelling direction of the yarn feeder is turned at the widening area, and after that, the travelling direction of the yarn feeder is turned again. During this time, the yarn is hooked on the pair of empty needles, and in succession, the yarn is fed again to the ex-empty-needles, on which the yarn is hooked, to form stitches. After that, stitches of the succeeding course are formed on needles beyond the widening area. In this way, stretches of the yarn crossing between stitches formed in the widened area and stitches of adjacent wales can be made shorter. Moreover, course differences between the widened area and the other areas are reduced, and in turn, the stitches formed in the widened area are prevented from being pulled up by stitches of other areas. As a result, holes are made less conspicuous. However, now it is required to make such holes completely inconspicuous.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The objective of the present invention is to provide a widening method for a rib knitted fabric that generates no holes in a widened area and a rib knitted fabric produced thereby.
The widening method for a rib knitted fabric according to the present invention is a widening method for a rib knitted fabric using a flat knitting machine having at least a pair of a front needle bed and a back needle bed being relatively movable leftward and rightward,
said method characterized by the following steps after making empty a pair of needles comprising a needle of the front needle bed and a needle of the back needle bed:
a. a step for making empty adjacent two needles on one same needle bed by transferring a stitch being held on a needle adjacent to one of said pair of empty needles to the other needle of said pair of empty needles;
b. a step for rib knitting by, while a yarn feeder is made to travel beyond said adjacent two empty needles, feeding yarn in the travelling direction of the yarn feeder to needles of both the front and back needle beds, up to the needle just short of said adjacent two empty needles;
c. a step for, while said yarn feeder is reversed and moved, hooking yarn on one of said adjacent two empty needles, forming a stitch on a needle of the other needle bed located between said two adjacent empty needles, and hooking yarn on the other needle of said two adjacent empty needles; and
d. a step for feeding yarn to needles of both the front and back needle beds to rib-knit, said needles being in succession to said two adjacent needles, while said yarn feeder is reversed again and moved.
The needle of the other needle bed located between said two adjacent empty needles mentioned in the step c, is, for example, the original empty needle to which a stitch was transferred in the step a. As shown in
FIG. 6
, in addition to expanding the knitting range of a rib knitted fabric, the present invention may be applied to other uses. However, preferably, at least on one of left and right side parts of the rib knitted fabric, for example, the steps a~d are repeated to expand the knitting range of the rib knitted fabric. In this case, rib knitting for the full knitting range, etc. may be added between steps a~d and next steps a~d.
In rib knitting, it has been known to knit by making active every other needle of both the front and back needle beds, and in this case, the ratio of needles in use to needles not in use is one to one. In such a case, two adjacent needles in the present invention are interpreted to have an inactive needle between them.
The present invention also provides a widened rib knitted fabric having a large number of stitches, rows of said stitches along the knitting direction forming courses and columns of said stitches perpendicular to the courses forming wales, wherein a pair of widening wales are provided on
Hung Chan Roger Kwok
Kamei Takahumi
Calvert John J.
Nikaido Marmelstein Murray & Oram LLP
Shima Seiki Manufacturing Ltd.
Werrell, Jr. Larry D.
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