A knitting machine is a device used to create knitted fabrics in a semi or fully automated fashion. There are numerous types of knitting machines, ranging from simple spool or board templates with no moving parts to highly complex mechanisms controlled by electronics. All, however, produce various types of knitted fabrics, usually either flat or tubular, and of varying degrees of complexity. Pattern stitches can be selected by hand manipulation of the needles, push-buttons and dials, mechanical punch cards, or electronic pattern reading devices and computers.
A modern industrial knitting machine in action
industrial circular knitting fabric machines
Six stages in the knitting machine cycle
Advertisement for a late 19th-century hosiery firm that depicts its factory floor with workers using knitting machines. Published 1886.
Knitting is a method for production of textile fabrics by interlacing yarn loops with loops of the same or other yarns. It is used to create many types of garments. Knitting may be done by hand or by machine.
Woman knitting
Basic pattern of warp knitting. Parallel yarns zigzag lengthwise along the fabric, each loop securing a loop of an adjacent strand from the previous row.
A modern knitting machine in the process of weft knitting
A dropped stitch, or missed stitch, is a common error that creates an extra loop to be fixed.
