Knitting technology, Third Edition

16.4.5
Reciprocated knitting of pouches
Three-dimensional shaping of pouches can be achieved on small-diameter hosiery
machines by using held loop shaping in a similar manner to flat knitting, so that the
number of courses knitted by adjacent needles is varied in order to knit a pouch for
a heel and, if necessary, for a toe.
During pouch-knitting, the rotating movement of the cylinder changes to an oscil-
latory movement. In the first half of the pouch-knitting sequence, only half the
needles continue knitting, and during the reciprocating knitting, a needle at each
edge is lowered out of action (narrowing) to join (in the case of heel-pouch knit-
ting) the instep needles, which are already holding their fabric loops. When only
one-third of the needles remain in action, widening commences so that needles are
successively brought back into action at the edge of the pouch. When all the pouch-
half of the needles have recommenced knitting, the cylinder returns to rotary knit-
ting and circular courses are knitted, with all needles in action.
A small-diameter garment machine was developed to produce shaping for the
bust or shoulder section of integrally-knitted garments using the 
reciprocated pouch
principle but has not been utilised to any extent [2].
As 
oscillatory knitting
is a much slower and more complicated process than cir-
cular knitting, the toe is produced as an open tube on many stocking and tights
machines. It is later seamed to shape. The heel may also be knitted as a part of the
leg tube, being boarded out and heat-set shaped during finishing.
One method of producing a stocking heel pouch in completely circular knitting
is to knit circular courses at the first feeder and to select needles for heel section
knitting at the second feeder in conjunction with striping, cutting and trapping of
yarn. With this method, a part circular course is sandwiched between each full cir-
cular course for the heel section.