Knitting technology, Third Edition

19.13
The split stitch
In Section 16.4.1 (Wale fashioning) it was mentioned that widening resulted in a
needle losing its loop by transfer to another needle so that, when knitting recom-
mences on the empty needle, a ‘tuck stitch’ type of eyelet hole is formed (Fig. 15.1).
In straight bar frame knitting, the covering of this hole is termed ‘
filling-in
’. A similar
technique has been developed for modern V-bed machines termed the ‘
split stitch
’.
There are two methods (Fig. 19.7a and b):
•
When knitting with a latch needle, a loop is transferred to an opposite bed loop
but immediately, the delivering needle receives a new loop whilst at transfer
height and this is drawn through the transferred loop. (Fig. 19.7a).
•
When knitting with a compound needle, the receiving needle takes and shares
half of a loop on a delivering needle in the opposite bed because that needle has
an open hook during transfer and does not cast-off its loop (Fig. 19.7b).
Front Knit Split Stitch
Newly made stitch
Front
Transferred stitch
Back
Front
Back
Transferred loop
Former loop
Fig. 19.7
(a) Split stitch using latch needles. (b) Split stitch using compound needles [Shima
Seiki].
19.14
Multi-carriage flat machines
Introduced by 
Textima
in 1950, the 
Diamant
machine has two separate pairs of
needle beds, each 72 inches (183 cm) wide, arranged parallel to each other on a rib
basis. Each pair knits a straight cut edge garment blank by means of 15 to 18 cam-
carriages that complete 10–15 clockwise circuits of the machine per minute, trans-
porting their own yarn packages, stripers and selection drums.
a
b

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Automatic power flat knitting
237