Flat Machine Knitting and Fabrics

by H. D. Buck

Half Cardigan or Tuck Stitch

The half cardigan or tuck stitch is used more than any other of the ribbed group, though it is generally used in combination with the plain rib. The body and sleeves of the ordinary rib sweater, and much of the rib underwear produced, are made in this stitch while the cuffs are plain rib. The reason for this is that the half cardigan rib will knit up considerably wider, with the same number of needles, than the plain rib, therefore it is possible to make a shaped garment without cutting and sewing up again. Also the plain rib comes out lighter and thinner so makes a more desirable cuff for sweaters and underwear. It also has more life or spring to it, which is another desirable feature.

The half cardigan or tuck stitch is the one that is almost invariably used in making the well known cotton back sweaters. It is believed by many people who are familiar with this fabric that the back stitch of cotton does not come through on the face, but in this they are mistaken. The face stitch does not go through on the back, but the back yarn does go through on the face.

Fig. 27.
Construction of a Half Cardigan
Rib Fabric.

Fig. 27 is a line drawing showing the course the yarn takes in making this stitch and a careful examination of it will demonstrate to the reader that this is the case. The dotted line e, e, indicates the wale on the face and f, f, shows the wale on the back. It will be noted that the back stitches of yarn come through to the face of the fabric and connect the preceding and succeeding stitches, c, c, the same as in the plain rib, but there is this difference, in the plain rib these face stitches are, or should be, just the same length, while in the half cardigan, on account of the back stitch of this course holding over for one course, it necessarily draws a longer stitch in the back and the yarn for this long stitch must come from the face stitch, thereby making this face stitch very short.

In the drawing the stitches are not proportioned just as they lie in the actual fabric, for if they were it would be very difficult to trace their course. In the fabric the stitches b, b are so short that they are almost completely covered by the large, full, round stitches, c, c, c. These stitches are full and large from the fact that where they go through to the back they do not form a loop but simply cross over the back loop as at d, without being drawn through. These are completely covered by the loops a, a, in the back wale.